Jenny Hval – Lay down
Norwegian artist Jenny Hval is set to release her new album “Iris Silver Mist” today, May 2nd via 4AD. The album has already garnered attention from NPR’s All Songs Considered, Pitchfork, and Brooklyn Vegan as one of spring 2025’s most anticipated releases. Following previous singles “To be a rose” and “The artist is absent” (which Stereogum called “outright pleasant” and a “giddy, sticky pop song”), Hval now unveils “Lay down,” the album opener.
“Lay down” begins where its namesake flower does—underground. “Lay down, down in the deep where your love comes from,” Hval sings, surrounded by gentle drums, synths, and strings. The track creates a journey from beneath the soil into blue skies, mirroring how an iris root aspires to become scent. When she observes, “You had bled through your jeans,” the line carries clinical detachment and emotional weight.
Hval explains the track with characteristic philosophical depth: “We enter the album through lying down in our own grave, under the earth, just like the root, which is the part of the iris that has a scent. It would be the very best time and place to listen to music, wouldn’t it?” She continues with thoughts that dance between birth and death: “The fetus can smell and taste their mother’s food as well as hear voices outside the mother’s body in the final months of a pregnancy. Can a ghost in the coffin still hear the birds singing above?”
The album title itself references scent rather than sound, highlighting how Hval’s art consistently crosses sensory boundaries. “Lay down” serves as both literal and metaphorical opener—we begin in the dirt, like a seed, before emerging into something beautiful yet ephemeral.
“Iris Silver Mist” will be released digitally, on CD, and on vinyl (standard black and limited pearl “Northern Light” edition). Those ordering the limited vinyl through the 4AD Store will receive a flexi disc of bonus track “I am an instrument” while supplies last.
