Bingkai Karya – Norwegian musician, artist and novelist, Jenny Hval, announces the album newest, Iris Silver Mist, which will be released on May 2, along with the title single/video “To be a rose”, as well as a UK & European tour.
Title Iris Silver Mist taken from a perfume created by Maurice Roucel for the French perfume house Serge Lutens. The scent has been described as more like steel than silver—cold, sharp, yet soft and sparkling, like stepping outside on a misty morning, while the body is still warm from sleep. Like music, perfume has heart notes and aromatic harmonies, spreading through the air in a way that is invisible but still feels very real.
Instead of starting from music, this album was born from the absence of music. During the pandemic, when there were no live concerts, the smell of cigarettes, soap and sweat from stage lights and shared bathrooms was replaced by the algorithmic experience of listening to music at home. For the first time since he was a teenager, Hval became interested in the world of perfume—sniffing, reading, collecting, and writing about fragrances, while his music was on hold. It took him a year to realize what was happening: he was looking for other ways to experience physical intimacy. When music feels like a void, it fills it with aroma.
Album Iris Silver Mist it is sensual, tactile, and intimate—touching the senses as scents, sounds, and images expand and multiply. Last year, in a series of shows called I want to be a Machine, Hval performed many songs from the album before recording, surrounded by rice cookers that spread the aroma of rice. Kicking off the album with a live performance was an unusual move—but also a very intimate one. By emphasizing the importance of physical, immediate elements in music, these songs bring back long-lost experiences in his life.
Throughout the album Iris Silver Mist, the perfume continues to change into smoke, mist, and music. On the lead single “To be a rose”, Hval sings the lyrics half-talking, half-singing, accompanied by the beat of a drum machine:
“A rose is a rose is a rose is a cigarette.”
(“A rose is a rose is a rose is a cigarette.”)
Roses and cigarettes are a hopeful form of romanticism, taking us to another place. About this song, Hval said:
“‘To be a rose’ written with a jittery pop structure. This song has a chorus with chords and a melody, but each chorus sounds a little different, as if we are experiencing this melody in a different season, decade, or even body. The cliche rose metaphor in this song is also not fixed, it can change shape into a cigarette and then evaporate into smoke.”
“My mother and I (two anxious humans) are both present in this song: ‘I sing in my room, she smokes on the balcony / Long inhales and long exhales are choreographed.’ If there is one thing to take away from this song, it is how something can turn into something else, how we all come from somewhere and someone, and how things are stranger and stronger than we think.”
The song’s music video consists of footage shot during various tours from 2015 to 2024, edited by Jenny Merger Myhre, who handled the visuals during the 2015 tour.
“A lot of times we perform in places without screens or projectors. As a result, what I record is often invisible to the audience, so the act of recording itself becomes part of the performance. I used an old VHS-C camera to record the show as a ritual of seeing and being seen. When we have a screen, my camera is directly connected to the projector, and I really love the moments when the ‘live’ footage cuts to backstage scenes, preparations, and previous performances—as if traveling through time in real-time.”
