Jenny Hval’s Lost Girls are in rock mode on new song “Ruins”

Jenny Hval has been on an incredible run these past few years: In 2021, Lost Girls — her duo with her husband and creative partner, avant-guitarist Håvard Volden — released their expansive, experimental debut LP, Menneskekollektivet, The FADER’s 35th favorite album of the year. Last year, as a solo artist, she guested on The FADER Interview and released Classic Objects — an unprecedentedly poppy entry into her catalog, and our 15th favorite record of 2022.

Today (July 17), Lost Girls have returned with the surprisingly rocking single “Ruins.” At just under five minutes, it’s quite compact compared to most of Menneskekollektivet. Centered on a penetrating bass and crunchy power chords, the track does what Hval’s songs do best — gradually building momentum as synths begin to blossom around her towering voice, which ascends at an accelerating pace until she takes the whole affair stratospheric.

“Håvard sent me this long, wonderful and kaleidoscopic bass line on top of a drum machine track that I had no clue what to do with — it felt too difficult to try to learn or tame it,” Hval writes in a press release. “I started improvising with it and moving parts around a bit, and the song began to feel like getting lost in a city at night, or a cemetery, walking around in circles, perhaps running, perhaps hiding. After improvising for a bit I realized that I was singing about this kind of pattern of movement, but as a band practice in the 90s, back when I first started playing with other people. If ‘Ruins’ is ‘about’ anything, it’s about a practice of discovery, being young and lost and feeling as if you are close to something ancient and magical.”

Stream “Ruins” below, and scroll further for Lost Girls’ newly announced fall tour dates. The Norwegian duo will play National Sawdust in Brooklyn on September 26 before returning to Europe for three November shows. In Paris, they’ll have support from The FADER’s most recent GEN F act, Decisive Pink.

September 26 - New York, NY - National Sawdust
November 5 - Paris, FR - Petit Bain *
November 7 - London, UK - Corsica Studios
November 11 - Berlin, DE - Silent Green

* with Decisive Pink