Anna von Haussolf: Iconoclast Review – Upbeat, Joyful Gothic Songs | Pop and rock

ANna von Hausswolff’s sixth studio album is being released as the 39-year-old Swede’s pivot towards pop, which you could say is relative. For the past decade, von Haussolf has dealt with music that is majestic, echo-laden, and heavy on the beat of her beloved pipe organ, fully worthy of the Gothic adjective.

Her work has prompted comparisons with Nico and Diamanda Gallas; 40 years ago, it might have been packaged in a painfully stripped-down 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 probably get an idea of ​​its emotional tone from the fact that it was released on a label best known for releasing death metal.

One blogger called her the “High Priestess” of “Satanic Harmony,” a description that got her into trouble. After the blogger took them at their word, Catholic fundamentalists successfully canceled her performances in churches in Nantes and Paris: at the former location, protesters blocked the entrance. Clearly, von Haussolf doesn’t look like an artist who would challenge Sabrina Carpenter or Taylor Swift.

However, the description of iconoclasts as “pop” fits the bill, albeit with some caveats. It’s far more melodic and straightforward than her previous work, and it’s not easy to imagine the most obvious track, “Aging Young Women” (a duet with Ethel Cain), on the radio or in the charts: it sounds a little like Lana Del Rey, if Del Rey had somehow managed to end up at the bottom of a well. Although it is perhaps worth noting that Cain is not the main collaborator here; Nor did Iggy Pop, who appeared on another song, “The Whole Woman,” whose baritone tone had a poignant oscillation at 78 years old. He’s pioneering saxophonist Otis Sandcio, whose music was described by Jazzwise magazine as “deliberately confusing”: suffice it to say, he’s not the first name you’d think of if you were planning a full-scale foray into Spotify’s Hot Hits. Playlist.

Sandsjö is ubiquitous on Iconoclasts, his sax driving the instrumentals on Struggle with the Beast and Consensual Neglect, his woodwind arrangements adding a touch of warmth to the title track and The Mouth, and he plays alternately raw – there are moments when you can hear his fingers hitting the keys of his instrument – ​​soothed and driving: the haunting funk of his performance on Struggle With the Beast animates the track for nearly nine minutes. However, you can’t call his contributions dominant: there’s just too much going on.

Iconoclasts is a long album – lasting the best part of an hour and a quarter – but it’s still packed with sound. There are loud, synthesized drones that sometimes evoke the sound of Fuck Buttons’ 2009 masterpiece Tarot Sport; Bursts of sizzling noise. Cinematic distributions. and drum patterns that marry the sound of ritualistic thunder with rhythms that are variously reminiscent of the pulse of dance music, the flashy beat of glam, and even reggae. Von Hausswolff is less inclined to break out into screams and ululations than she used to, but her singing still has a burning power that cuts through the reverb in which it is often bathed.

It’s music that seems to be in constant motion, amplified by the fact that the melodies, rich and beautiful as they are, rarely adhere to any standard verse-chorus structure: the songs here usually end in a very different place than where they started. In fact, maximizing it may be too overwhelming to take in in one long sitting.

But if it’s too much, it’s too much of a good thing: with their sense of movement, their twists, their radiant melodies, and their emotional power, these songs are as exhausting as they are exhilarating. For an album with a worldview summed up by a catchy line from Facing Atlas declaring life on Earth “full of filth and full of evil,” musings on aging and crippling depression, and on which it’s often unclear whether the songs deal with something personal or with current events (“The sky is collapsing on the ships of freedom…the life we ​​lived evaporated into the sky”), its overall mood is one of weary euphoria. The songs escalate and escalate, and the bursts of noise feel cathartic. It is as if the music is fighting the tone of the words, pressing forward despite everything. “I broke away from language,” von Hauswolf sings on Stardust, “in search of something bigger.” In the strange, unique, expansive, passionate and experimental presentation of pop music presented in iconoclasm, they seem to have found it.

What Alexis listened to this week

Sampha – aggregate/memory
Co-written by Romy of the xx, but dropped for Sampha’s 2023 album Lahai, Cumulus/Memory is two songs in one, changing tempos midway through but united by a small, reflective mood.