Photos By Philip Svensson
On “Facing Atlas”, Swedish Musician and composer Anna von Hausswolff’s breaks open the gates into a warm sound world. Her ethereal vocals meld with echoing drums, a murmuring church organ alongside reverberating guitars and a swirling saxophone as she herself becomes one figure in this fluttering aural space. “‘Facing Atlas’ is about the risks of commitment; to be bound to something until you no longer feel control over yourself and your direction in life. A destiny can feel like a prison if it’s not chosen by heart’s desire,” von Hausswolff reveals.
It’s the latest single from her forthcoming album ICONOCLASTS due October 31 via YEAR0001, her first with the label. Throughout the years von Hausswolff’s releases cemented her as an artist of unpredictable and vast creativity – always moving forward, always fusing tradition with experimentation in unimaginable ways. On ICONOCLASTS, her sound evolves again, bringing a poppier and more vibrant element to her moving songs. Produced by von Hausswolff and longtime collaborator Filip Leyman, it is an opus of stirring movement, anthemic ritualism, and maximalist composition, marking a new chapter in von Hausswolff’s music and featuring appearances from Ethel Cain, Abul Mogard, Iggy Pop and Maria von Hausswolff.
ICONOCLASTS begins with brass heralding out, beckoning listeners into the boundless story that is about to unfold. From this, the groundwork is set for an album of blistering, mounting tension and hard-fought, euphoric release. Addressing themes of love, freedom, and autonomy, its title, ICONOCLASTS, hints at a shattering and reimagining of the sacred personal symbols that bubble under the surface of contemporary life: commitment, time, dependency, and belief.
In this pursuit, von Hausswolff chooses Atlas—he who carries the world’s weight upon his shoulders—as a sympathetic character. How does one find the strength to prevent collapsing in these trying moments? For von Hausswolff, it is the pursuit of the divine. She finds inspiration in the fears and contradictions that arise when one is faced with monolithic power structures and concepts. The songs on ICONOCLASTS transform these uncertain feelings into kindling for the creation of sonic bonfires of immense scale. Von Hausswolff sows her songs in the borderlands between the gargantuan and the intimate, and it is the ashes of these demolished symbols that fertilise its grounds for new possibilities.
On ICONOCLASTS, her ensemble is expanded to include the virtuoso saxophonist Otis Sandsjö, who brings his saxophone trills to the core of the record. With a magnetic power, her voice pulls the listener closer, offering glimpses into an emotive world of secrets and madness, of heartbreak and desire, of beauty and life. Although pushing towards new sonic territory, ICONOCLASTS features all of the signature qualities of a von Hausswolff release: mammoth intensity, crystalline iridescence, and lustrous dynamism.
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