VON HAUSSWOLFF, ANNA - CEREMONY (2LP)

"I don't know what you expect from a new record by Anna von Hausswolff. More of those gothic, dark and fragile ballad-atmospheres marking her debut album Singing from the Grave? A series of easy-hummed melodies adapted to contemporary pop radio formats? Or something more adventureous, dangerous, unpredictable? The lastmentioned quality has always been there, since Anna von Hausswolff started to do her solo performances in and around Gothenburg in 2007: the powerful, contradictory and ambiguous expressions that made the songs take unsuspected routes. But on Ceremony this particular freedom has come to the forefront and very centre of the music. It's a radical change making both the songs and the sounds bigger, wider, deeper, sharper, more transient. It's like the music went up in the air, travelling in its own balloon. Strange that nobody has tried it before: using the church organ as the main instrument and focus point in pop music. To categorize this music by genre terms seems just stupid. The whole point is that the songs allow themselves to be everything at once, and the church organ is the one confirmation of this complexity and immediate sense of presence. The songs move without hindrance, from one state of mind to the other, and have a remarkable capacity to fuse with the landscape or the room. There's a sense of trust and a listening to the changes of light and time, that make the music strong and grand. It changes incessantly, it's completely free." (Magnus Haglund) rerelease of the 2012 Kning Disk 2LP