Suffering Jukebox

This morning's episode features an interview with (the members) from Naarm's Propaine. Recently in town to play one of the final nights at Season Three Space alongside Quiet Steps, Naaki Soul and Doris, Propaine are about to drop the new single Sanctuary (which is being premiered on today's show) and will soon be releasing their debut album through Kitty Records. Find out more about Propaine (and purchase their music) here https://propaineband.bandcamp.com/

Nick's Pick of the Week is Jenny Hval's Iris Silver Mist. You can hear the whole album in all the usual places, or purchase it here https://jennyhval.bandcamp.com/album/iris-silver-mist and my review can be read below.

Jenny Hval: Iris Silver Mist (4AD)

Released May 2nd 2025

Norwegian artist Jenny Hval is a shapeshifter of sorts; a musician, producer and writer, who has enjoyed a long career of musical endeavours, both in groups and solo. Iris Silver Mist is Hval’s seventh album under her own name and her fourteenth overall. Named after a perfume from the iconic French parfumerie Serge Lutgens, Iris Silver Mist is airy and ethereal and —like a fragrance— its presence lingers in the room, long after the record has stopped spinning. 

Intriguingly, scent played a pivotal role in the album’s composition. Mostly written during the COVID era, Hval was struck by the absence of the familiar scents she associated with being a working musician: the unique aromas of venues, transport, hotels and so forth. To further emphasise the impact of smell, Hval debuted many of the album’s songs as part her of I Want To Be A Machine performances, accompanied by working rice cookers that gradually filled the performance space with the smell of cooked rice.

Eclectic and diverse, Iris Silver Mist is often beautiful, occasionally bizarre and and consistently challenging. It would be unlike Hval to release an album that adheres to a singular style and this is no exception. Early single, To Be A Rose, is one of the album’s many highlights that recalls a childhood memory of her mother smoking on the balcony. This rather mundane recollection is given added complexity as the song shifts through multiple versions of the verse and chorus, each altered slightly to reflect a different season.

Iris Silver Mist’s final movement, the trilogy of The Gift, A Ballad and I Want The End To Sound Like This, provide the album with its strongest moments, condensing all that is memorable about the record into a final suite of songs. The Gift fuses the everyday observances of a working musician with a glitchy electronic backing, while A Ballad is a darker, though still lovely examination of self-doubt. Finally, I Want The End To Sound Like This —as its title suggests— brings the album to a close with almost six minutes of instrumental ambience.

Hval’s music continues to shift and evolve, taking on new forms and breaking new ground. She is a singular performer and a multi-disciplinary artist who brings her whole self to everything she creates. Iris Silver Mist is an enchanting and beguiling album, one that is dazzling but also mysterious and slightly unknowable; much like the artist herself.

Nick Stephan