Anna von Hausswolff, an âorgan-wielding enchantressâ from Gothenburg, has opened for such modern day greats as Efterklang and Tindersticks; indeed, Rasmus Stolberg of the former group professed to being âobsessedâ with her second album Ceremony when we spoke with him last October, describing her as sounding like âKate Bush singing at the gates of Hellâ. Heâs got a point.
Von Hausswolffâs innate, ornate musicality is evidenced from the off in âEpitaph of Theodorâ, which goes from funereal to sheer splendour over the course of its five-or-so minutes. âDeathbedâ then comes stomping out of its own ominous wilderness, von Hausswolff finally letting her soaring voice loose almost five minutes into its nine. One skyscraping instrumental coda later and youâd be hard pressed to name a more epic-sounding track this year.
âGoodbyeâ is a landscape of sudden rapture, rising like the sun with its astonishing use of dynamics, while âLiturgy of Lightâ evokes the slow-yet-intensely-burning majesty of Spirt of Eden-era Talk Talk. Ceremony also comes bearing some instantly arresting vocal set pieces: thereâs the cascading downwards inflection on âIâll take it baaaaaack!â within âOceanâ, an impressively operatic turn on âSovaâ (distinguished also by its sticky Flaming Lips guitar, clip cloppy percussion and managing to integrate a daft keyboard sound into its melodrama), and is she really singing âMy milk is grey and bitterâ on the brilliantly morbidly titled âFuneral for My Future Childrenâ? Thereâs a chance we misheard that one.
Whereas âGoodbyeâ merely sounds like the sun rising, the closing track of Ceremony both sounds like one and is titled âSun Riseâ. Welcome back to modernity, church organ, and credit to Rasmus Stolberg of Efterklang for his fine taste: whatever âitâ is, Anna von Hausswolff has most definitely got it.
