Gothenburg singer-songwriter Anna Von Hausswolff is on the verge of releasing her now album, Dead Magic,, on March 2nd via City Slang. It’s an intense body of work, its five songs extending over 47 minutes and 20 seconds (y’know, roughly), were composed in her hometown in 2016 and recorded the following year in Denmark. The majority of recordings were done on the 20th century organ at Copenhagen’s Marmorkirken, “the Marble Church”, one of the largest churches in Scandinavia, with a chapel inspired by the majestic St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
As to her thoughts on the record, well there isn’t one. Not from her anyway. Instead she’s chosen a poem by the Swedish writer Walter Ljungquist (1900-1974) as the only comment – a suggestion and nothing more, the rest of the magic will be left to the music.
“Take the fate of the human being, a thin pathetic line that contours and encircles an infinite and unknown silence. It is in this very silence, in an only imagined and unknown centre, that legends are born. Alas! That is why there are no legends in our time. Our time is a time deprived of silence and secrets; in their absence no legends can grow.”
From the record, Anna has released the 12 minute opus The truth, the glow, the fall. In actual fact it could almost be three pieces segued by masses of noise and connected by fragments of melody and an overarching mood, as she lays down these psychedelic, dreamy vocal lines over shimmering and sweeping guitar lines and woozy organ/electronics. It’s breathtaking stuff.
Check it out, here
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