Jenny Hval

Jenny Hval is a singer-songwriter who is pulled between the two poles of gentle indie pop songs and spoken word driven conceptual pieces, often landing somewhere on that scale, and sometimes shifting directions in the course of a song. Her pop generally has a relaxed, breezy tone with lovely melodies, while her experimental pieces usually incorporate some ambient elements, spoken word narratives that give off lighter Laurie Anderson vibes (minus all the experimental electronics). Her music often deals with big ideas, whether lyrically as she pours her remarkable intellect into dissecting political and cultural issues, or from the production POV in the way she layers her music, creates transitions, and otherwise liberally borrows idioms from trance, jazz, '80s drone music, and so on. She is also a published author of a few novels so the fact that her albums generally focus on overarching ideas should not be that surprising.