Jenny Wilson — Interview
I was humbled and honoured to interview singer & musician Jenny Wilson about her new album Exorcism. Below is a brief excerpt.
Please visit Pennyblackmusic.com to read the full interview.
Exorcism is to Swedish electro maven Jenny Wilson’s ouevre what Guernica is to Picasso’s: an uncompromising masterpiece of equal political and artistic importance.
The difference: Picasso painted as an observer; Wilson makes music as a survivor.
“I didn’t choose the subject, the subject chose me,” says Wilson, whose discography includes Love and Youth, Hardships!, and the double album Blazing. “I was 40-plus, with two kids, a career, and a network of lovely friends. Despite all that, and the fact I considered myself a ‘smart’ and ‘strong’ woman, it happened to me. The rape.”
Exorcism charts Wilson’s pain, fear, anger, fragility and struggle to reshape her sense of self after a man raped her, two years ago. Her frank, unsparing lyrics are disturbing: as they should be. Sexual violence is a common theme in popular music and culture, but the tale is almost always told from a male perspective. Women are victims or objects; rarely subjects.
Wilson rejects this script. Exorcism lays full claim to her experience as an artist, a woman, and a survivor. She mourns, but doesn’t flinch. Her courage calls on us to open our eyes.
PB: Why did you decide to make an album about such a painful subject?
JW: I was confused and shocked. I had lost my inner compass. The only thing I knew for sure was that I HAD to write about it. Not that I WANTED to, but had to. This disturbing, horrifying thing had to go through my entire system. Otherwise it would’ve blocked me. Maybe shut me up… forever?
