Anna von Hausswolff's debut EP "Track of Time" was released in February 2010 by Kning Disk, magnificent avant-garde pop with its crosshairs trained on the heart. The first album "Singing From the Grave" appeared in May. Everyone who hears Anna von Hausswolff sing, immediately stops, listens and gets touched by her magic. Her voice is that of total expression. Sometimes it caresses you, sometimes it roars up a storm.
On July 9, 2013 "Ceremony" was released in North America by Other Music Recording Co., and Anna von Hausswolff played her debut US show on July 10 at Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn. The album received strong support from National Public Radio's Bob Boilen, who said "Von Hausswolff's voice possesses the power to soar with those mighty pipes and still hold tight to delicate, personal emotions. I hope to find one album like Ceremony every year — a rare, thoughtful, inspiring record for a night on the couch or a candlelit evening — and now I've got one for 2013." She was also featured on NPR Weekend Edition Saturday, PRI's The World, WNYC Soundcheck, the New York Times, Pitchfork and more.
Ceremony was followed up by "The Miraculous" late in 2015.
Large pipe organs first started to be built in European churches in the 14th century. While much of the music that people at the time heard and played would be dedicated to the glory of God, surely nothing could have prepared them for the sound that now filled their places of worship. As the solemn timbre of the metallic pipes echoed around the stony transept, the congregation must have trembled in their pews before this new instrument of the Almighty. More than ever, the organ turned the church into a place of "mystery, magic and terror".
These are the words that Anna von Hausswolff uses to describe the undisclosed location in rural Sweden that inspired The Miraculous, a place of great natural beauty that nevertheless remains haunted by the blood-stained spectres of a brutally suppressed peasant uprising. Using the 9,000 pipe Acusticum Pipe Organ, Hausswolff has conjured an entire world into being here, forging a unity between reality and imagination that's so immense in its conception that it's initially difficult to properly take in. It's like a gigantic monument that you have to keep stepping back from in order to get any perspective on it.
The sleeve alone should clue the listener to the fact that there's nothing here as heart-stoppingly lovely as 'Mountains Crave' from 2012's Ceremony: Hausswolff appears as a faceless apparition, an erased portrait sitting in a derelict room with faded pictures of Christ and angels on the walls. The elemental vastness of the sound recalls the aesthetic of Swans, while Nico is another key reference point, one woman communing with herself and the world via a droning, medieval keyboard. But The Miraculous certainly isn't all existential gloom and despair. Instead, its sense of dread is offset throughout by a yearning to break free of mortal bonds and become immanent in nature.
'Discovery' immediately sets the tone, a foghorn blast of bass pipes suggesting that something huge is approaching in the dark. A thick wave of organ slowly seeps into every corner of the audio field, before a skirling siren call and the military drums of battles past introduce notes of tension and conflict. It breaks down to the sounds of aftermath from which a spare Morricone-esque guitar line emerges. When Hausswolff finally starts to sing, her voice is strong as she bears witness, but soon the words start to tumble out with growing urgency, and then she's chanting "Run!/Run!/Run to the sun!"
This epic opener is followed by two shorter tracks. 'The Hope Only Of Empty Men' sounds like it's being transmitted from some point in the distant past, Hausswolff's syllables twisted and tortured as they leave her mouth, while the organ pulses like a hangover. 'Pomperipossa' is an awestruck blast of ecclesiastical prog full of unnerving chord changes.
But it's the eleven minute sturm und drang of 'Come Wander With Me/Deliverance' that's the album's massive centrepiece. A slow, sepulchral organ melody is joined by the beautiful controlled tone of Hausswolff's lonely choir girl. There's a great segue into a lumbering procession of the damned which then consolidates into a hammering one chord riff over an increasingly martial beat. Hausswolff sings, "He came from the sunset / He came from the sea / He came from the shadows…" like Elizabeth Fraser on the rack, before dissolving into wordless cries of ecstasy or pain, who knows. Cue guitar solo, and then a little sit down to recover.
It's hard to imagine where to go after that, but another three short tracks pick up the album's themes. 'En Ensam Vandrare' is based on the type of brooding but meditative arpeggios that inevitably bring Philip Glass to mind, while 'An Oath' is a ballad sung against marching drums again. And then 'Evocation' is a summoning up of everything that's gone before, the density of the sound plus the inflection in Hausswolff's voice making me wonder if this is what Sunn O))) recording with Abba would sound like. There's a minute of static and feedback ascending and then disappearing into the sky, and it feels like a natural ending–
But no. 'The Miraculous' itself is an extended drone piece, a gradual layering of chords on the organ as though it's slowly waking up from a deep slumber. Hausswolff's voice drifts over the top, her faceless spirit moving through the pipes, the organ's high notes like swooning strings and brass. Final track 'Stranger' is perhaps the most 'traditional' and romantic song here, a plea for absolution with twanging guitar.
This album is a pretty astonishing piece of work. Hausswolff has pushed out into unmapped territory where post-rock, prog, doom metal, modern classical and high church music all co-exist in uneasy alliance. It's the type of album you have to commit to completely, but for those seeking a glimpse of the numinous, it's worth the effort.
March 2018 sees the release of Anna's fourth album - "Dead Magic", and was preceded by the single "The Vanishing of Elektra" and in the run up to the albums release its first track "The Truth, The Glow, The Fall" was officially released as an audio onto YouTube.
Official site: http://www.annavonhausswolff.com
Official Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/annavonhausswolff
Singing From the Grave
Anna von Hausswolff Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
tight with one single stone.
Engravings and heart for soul
singing out with the folks.
I am down with my corpse alone
the graveyard is my home.
So I don't need your precious rose, 'cause I'm already in the mud.
They are stadning with tears in their eyes.
I'm laughing about my own nest.
Is this really how things turned out?
It ain't so easy for me now
as they are holding a speech for me.
It ain't so easy for me now
as I am dead as I should be.
The lyrics to Anna von Hausswolff's song "Singing From the Grave" speak to the idea of celebrating life beyond death. The opening lines "Celebrating life alone, tight with one single stone" suggest the idea of a solitary existence, but one that is fortified by a physical object that serves as a physical reminder and symbol of one's past existence. The singer suggests that even in death, one's soul can still sing out with the people, and engravings and hearts serve as reminders of that connection beyond the grave.
The lyrics go on to describe the singer's own experience with death, imagining herself looking down on those who are mourning her. She laughs at their pain, but also wonders to herself whether this is really how things were supposed to turn out. There is a sense of ambivalence and confusion that permeates the song: while the singer seems to be at peace with her own death ("I am dead as I should be"), she also seems to be questioning the nature of existence and what it all means in the end.
Overall, "Singing From the Grave" is a poignant and thought-provoking meditation on the nature of life and death. It speaks to the idea that even in death, there is a sense of connection and continuity that endures, and that we can find comfort in the idea that our souls continue to sing out long after we are gone.
Line by Line Meaning
Celebrating life alone
Finding joy in solitude.
Tight with one single stone
One gravestone is enough for me, it represents all that I need.
Engravings and heart for soul
The words inscribed on my gravestone are a reflection of my inner self.
Singing out with the folks
I am at peace, singing alongside the other voices in the cemetery.
I am down with my corpse alone
I am at one with my own mortality, and have made my peace with it.
The graveyard is my home
The cemetery is where I belong, where I am most comfortable.
So I don't need your precious rose, 'cause I'm already in the mud.
Don't waste your sympathies on me, I am at peace with my place in the earth.
I'm looking over people.
As a ghost, I am now able to observe the living from beyond the grave.
They are standing with tears in their eyes.
Those left behind mourn for me, but I am content with my death.
I'm laughing about my own nest.
My final resting place brings me joy, even in death.
Is this really how things turned out?
Even in death, I am still questioning the way things have unfolded.
It ain't so easy for me now as they are holding a speech for me.
The eulogy being delivered for me is difficult to hear, even as a ghost.
It ain't so easy for me now as I am dead as I should be.
Despite my peace with death, it is still difficult to come to terms with being dead.
Writer(s): Anna von Hausswolff Copyright: Figs D. Music O.B.O. Misty Music AB, Misty Music AB
Contributed by Elliot F. Suggest a correction in the comments below.