Anna von Hausswolff has released a live recording from the legendary Montreux Jazz Fest on a metal label, but does that make the Swedish composer, musician, record producer, label owner, and singer an iconoclast? Looking back on her releases from the past 15 years, her discography doesn’t necessarily paint the picture of a rule-breaker. She is, however, an extraordinary genre-bender who made a niche for herself by consistently up on and recombining influences ranging from early 4AD releases and Batcave sounds to Diamanda Galás and Kate Bush, dark takes on folk music, drone and drone/doom metal as well as recently improvised music from the jazz lineage in ever-new ways. Her new album, co-produced with Filip Leyman, features Iggy Pop, Ethel Cain, and Abul Mogard as well as her sister Maria, and perhaps those are the Iconoclasts that von Hausswolff talks about.
The list of collaborators is indicative of von Hausswolff’s open-ended approach. Whereas previous albums were led by a unified vision—such as haunting folk on her debut »Singing from the Grave,« goth-pop hybrids on her breakthrough album »Ceremony,« or organ doom metal on »All Thoughts Fly«—these twelve pieces form a showcase that puts the outcomes of her diverse interests and talents on display while also approaching a poppier sound. That is, if you think that lines like »It’s expensive to be alive« in a choral section of an 11-minute-long track can qualify as such. »
Iconoclasts is a veritable grab-bag of ideas and moods, but it also does feel like a stepping stone towards something that is conceptually and stylistically more coherent. This record is best understood as an album in the original sense of the word: a collection of individual snapshots that makes it possible to trace the extraordinary journey of a singular, though not exactly iconoclastic artist.
