When I was in middle school, I developed a fascination with a 2000 indie film called Groove centered around the rave scene in San Francisco. Like her more chaotic-sounding work, it just makes the spell even stronger. Is this some kind of statement about the creative process? Death? (She references a burial.) Sex? (She sings about sticking 'two fingers in the earth, into erotic lines, into the honeypot.') But the ambiguity and weirdness don't detract from the fact that this is the closest thing to a pop song the Norwegian experimentalist has produced.
Over time, the dream gets increasingly confusing.
Buoyed by pillowy chords and a feathery but propulsive dance beat, it’s a song about a dream she had about writing a song-one that might also be the song we happen to be listening to, which also shares its name with a David Bowie hit. It’s not the only moment on 'Ashes to Ashes,' from 2019’s epic The Practice of Love, that feels meta. As she sings the line, a crashing wave of synthesizer appears from out nowhere, as though to underscore the sheer vastness of that sorrow. 'Even the groove was filled with sadness,' Jenny Hval informs us.
