Anna von Hausswolff’s sixth studio album is being trailed as the 39-year-old Swede’s pivot towards pop, which you could say is all relative. For the last decade, Von Hauswolff has dealt in music that is solemn, echo-laden, heavy on the drone of her beloved pipe organ and fully deserving of the adjective gothic.
Her work has elicited comparisons to Nico and Diamanda Galás; 40 years ago, it might have been packaged in a hauntingly abstract Vaughan Oliver sleeve and released on 4AD. She has collaborated with Swans, Sunn O))) and the black metal band Wolves in the Throne Room. Her last album, 2020’s All Thoughts Fly, was a collection of instrumentals, recorded on a replica of a 17th-century German baroque organ in a church in Gothenburg: you can perhaps get some idea of its emotional tone from the fact that it was released on a label best known for releasing doom metal.
