Anna von Hausswolff
Iconoclasts

Anna von Hausswolff has never quite fit the mold of the classic singer-songwriter with a pretty face and a standard-issue guitar.

Her most recent sonic artifacts, Dead Magic (which ventured into the realm of dystopian doom metal soundscapes) and the instrumental All Thoughts Fly, sustained exclusively by baroque-tinged organ drones, have shown that the Swedish artist truly believed in her sweeping, provocative experimentalism.

Beautiful sounds, alluring musical structures, and a refined voice have always been of little interest to her, as she decidedly and deeply veered towards a perpetually spiraling, downward musical journey.

In this sense, her sixth studio album, Iconoclasts, is a surprise, packed with unpredictable elements.

Not that Anna has suddenly turned into a pop musician, but this album is more accessible and catchy, though not without some jolts of her past self.

Accompanied and perhaps supported by a hotchpotch of guests, including Italian ambient and drone expert Abul Mogard (Guido Zen), indie songwriter Ethel Caine, and the iguana Iggy Pop, Anna has essentially developed a concept for an album without a concept, because the 12 tracks, some of which are rather long, each live a distinctly happy, if somewhat tamed, life.

The specific aesthetics of her old albums and the transient creative freedom of this one clash.

In order, we have:

The beloved church organ,

synth drones,

live drums,

a folk guitar,

choral and vocal arrangements,

winds of every kind,

the Montreux Jazz Festival in 2022.

The brass sections—sometimes jazzy, sometimes cacophonous, sometimes dystopian, sometimes onomatopoeic, and sometimes lyrical—are perhaps the most interesting innovation.

Apart from that, nothing here is set in stone to be passed down through the ages.

I’ll spare you the track by track,

Iconoclasts is an album that fans of her early work can probably connect to far more than her avant-garde output of the recent past.

Anna opens up to an epic accessibility.

Doom metal legacies and the shadowy neoclassicism of her recent past have dissolved.

As has the compact, German-inspired baroque organ work of All Thoughts Fly.

And I feel a bit sad about that. The direct simplicity has vanished.

But the cosmic energy has grown exponentially.