Anna von Hausswolff

Born in Gothenburg, Sweden,[1] Von Hausswolff is the daughter of avant garde sound artist Carl Michael von Hausswolff.[2] She was a student of architecture at Chalmers University of Technology.[2]

Von Hausswolff released her debut single, "Track of Time", on 5 February 2010,[3] followed by the debut album Singing from the Grave. The album was very well received by the Swedish press.[4] She played the Way Out West Festival in 2009.[2] In March 2010 she opened for Tindersticks on three occasions[5] and toured Brazil with Taken by Trees and Taxi Taxi! Then in 2011 she opened for Lykke Li thrice, and also for M.Ward at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. She has played at several big festivals in Sweden such as Peace and Love, Storsjöyran, Way Out West, Arvika, and Made Festival. Hausswolff is noted for her expressive voice and her live performances,[2][5] and is sometimes compared to Diamanda Galás.

On July 9, 2013, Ceremony was released in North America by Other Music Recording Co., and Anna von Hausswolff played her debut US show on July 10 at Glasslands Gallery in Brooklyn. The album received strong support from National Public Radio's Bob Boilen, who said "Von Hausswolff's voice possesses the power to soar with those mighty pipes and still hold tight to delicate, personal emotions. I hope to find one album like Ceremony every year — a rare, thoughtful, inspiring record for a night on the couch or a candlelit evening — and now I've got one for 2013." She was also featured on NPR's Weekend Edition, PRI's The World, WNYC Soundcheck, the New York Times, Pitchfork and more.

Von Hausswolff released her fourth album Dead Magic, produced with Sunn O))) producer Randall Dunn, on City Slang records on 2 March 2018.[1] The album features songs recorded on the 20th-century pipe organ at Copenhagen's rococo-style Marble Church.[1] Von Hausswolff hopes that the album causes listeners to accept mystery and ambiguity in an "extremely materialistic society where everything needs to be explained."[6]

All Thoughts Fly is the fifth album, recorded on a pipe organ situated in Gothenburg. The organ is a Swedish replica of the Arp Schnitger organ in Germany. It is the largest organ tuned in Quarter-comma meantone temperament in the world.

Anna has collaborated with Wolves in the Throne Room, Swans, and Yann Tiersen.

Von Hausswolff's gothic-style music is described as "art pop, drone, and post-metal", with "a juxtaposition of dark and bright". The Guardian has described it as "funeral pop".[1] Her 2015 release, The Miraculous, is noted for its "gothic splendour".[7] Dead Magic shows a "brighter, poppier beat". Her vocals are likened to Nico, Diamanda Galás, Peruvian soprano Yma Sumac, and are compared to Kate Bush and A Kiss In The Dreamhouse-era Siouxsie Sioux.[7] Her music is associated with the Krautrock genre with odes to Einstürzende Neubauten and Swans.[7]

The pipe organ features heavily in her work. In an interview with The National about the album, she spoke to the physically-demanding nature of the instrument, "You are working with your hands and feet, and you have all these stops that you are pulling in and out to make flute sounds, or maybe trumpet sounds. If you are playing fast it’s like dancing – you have to move the entire body to make it work.”[8]