“Conceptual Romance” begins with the sound of a stuttering fan as Jenny Hval’s narrator describes a dream in which a partner has left her. Her voice has a familiar monotonous quality to it, and it catches when she describes her awakening: “I wake up high/ High on madness/ A sexual holding pattern/ Stuck in erotic self-oscillation/ This landmine of a heart.” This is why I love Hval:
It’s a self-evaluation of her behavior that, if you’ve ever found yourself plagued by feelings of mistrust toward someone you love, feels almost too close for comfort. And from there, Hval brings the partner back, lets them stew in her self-flagellation with a choral hook that is catchy in only the way Hval’s songs can be catchy: “Conceptual romance is on my mind/ I call it abstract romanticism/ Conceptual romance is you/ It’s you and I.”
This is a song for over-thinkers who wish they could be romantics. It’s a song for people who don’t know how to give up control long enough to feel any kind of romance beyond the textbook-definition. “Conceptual romance” is studied like physics, “real romance” is felt only when we’re at our most vulnerable. But getting to that point is an exercise in letting go, which can be an excruciating thing to do when you’re unaccustomed to it. “This blood bitch’s tale goes a bit like this/ I lose myself in the rituals of bad art and failure/ I want to give up/ But I can tell,” Hval’s voice quavers before she plucks reassurance from the ether. “My heartbreak is too sentimental for you.”
The Fat Angel Sings 