Norweigan alt-pop artist Sval returns with a literal pop 'GRENADE', out October 21st through PIAS
LISTEN TO ‘GRENADE’ HERE
After delighting us with a scattering of fresh and enticing material since the release of her highly-praised debut EP ‘Young Alien’ in 2019, which have since seen her rack up tens of millions of streams in the process, Norwegian alt-pop artist Sval has now made her eagerly-awaited return with the release of her soaring new single ‘GRENADE’.
Marking her first piece of new material so far this year, ‘GRENADE’ sees her reinvented as a bold and euphoric name on the rise. Working alongside her regular collaborators Jimi Somewhere and Milo Orchis, her newest offering delivers a brilliantly raw and explosive direction that signals the beginning of her next enigmatic phase.
Speaking about ‘GRENADE’, she said, “I had so much fun creating “GRENADE”. It was the type of session where we just played around and did what felt natural. Sometimes I tend to make lyrics more complicated than they need to be, but on this track I wanted to keep the message clear.
“To me, ‘GRENADE’ is a self destructive and liberating song at the same time. It’s about embracing sadness and anger, and even though the song has a sad tone it’s something beautiful about owning those feelings completely.
“Whenever I’m feeling sad, as long as I get to sit with those feelings for a while, I’m fine. The song has a certain kind of loneliness attached to it, thoughts of others not understanding your feelings. Hopefully people can release to that.”
The idea of a child star has morphed over recent years. Where it used to be a catalyst for disruption, recent years have seen a plethora of musicians navigate a career out of teenage acclaim into adulthood. Norwegian singer/songwriter Sval is one such name, with a decade in the industry under her belt and still only 23 years old, her new chapter reinforces that with even greater vigour.
It wasn’t until her first English-language recordings, with the release of her 2019 EP ‘Young Alien’, that Sval began to carve out a niche, and a new path all of her own making. “It felt like a new creative chapter,” Sval says of her transition to English-language writing. “The languages are so different, so it’s a different way of writing and it feels like exploring something untapped - a way to express myself in different ways.”
Inspired by the intricate storytelling nature of Frank Ocean and Lykke Li, Sval’s new work is less polished, more off-centre than what’s come before, and finds her embracing the imperfections that come from working closely with people in a room together. As such the music is freer, unafraid of breaking the rules and creating its own boundaries – a development that was inspired by writing the majority of the songs in Jimi Somewhere’s home studio, amid the friendship that grew between them during the process.
It’s a far cry from Sval’s roots, but she’s never shied away from the unconventional journey that got her here. “I’ll always appreciate the competition because it was a songwriting competition, and it showed me the value of telling my own stories and translating what I go through.”
DISCOVER SVAL