Anna von Hausswolff – Iconoclasts | soundsfromthedarkside

Brace yourself, Anna von Hausswolff just made the most fearless album of her career.

Anna von Hausswolff’s music has never aimed for comfort. Over the past 15 years she has carved out a unique space in the experimental and dark-arts corner of the music world, earning admiration from artists like Michael Gira, Nick Cave, Stephen O’Malley, Greg Anderson and Yann Tiersen. After five years of relative silence, she returns with Iconoclasts, an album that once again underlines her reputation as a boundary-pushing composer. Where earlier works such as Dead Magic (2018) and the instrumental All Thoughts Fly (2020) drifted through drone, organ tonal and mysticism, this record feels more direct, more forceful. Von Hausswolff told The Line of Best Fit magazine that the songs are about love, but also about a fierce desire for change. People need to practice what they preach and thus she wanted her latest outing to “[…] feel like a battle cry” and that intention is written all over the music.

Across about 75 minutes, von Hausswolff rejects traditional structures or short, easily digestible songs. Pop elements appear for the first time in her work, but every track either slowly burns, erupts, or opens space for the listener to breathe. The central theme is duality, between noise and melody, chaos and clarity and intimacy and spectacle.

On the first vocal track Facing Atlas opens with a noisy instrumental landscape with Colin Stetson-like saxophone, her signature pipe organ combined with heartfelt melodies which remind of Kate Bush and Jenny Hval. It’s a grand opening statement, on which the title track only expands upon. In eleven minutes, a heavy guitar riff transforms into strings, which then dissolve into a meditative saxophone solo. These dynamic transitions create an overwhelming experience and are an early high point of the album. Does von Hausswolff peak too soon?

Well, things do slow down for The Whole Woman, a duet with veteran Iggy Pop. Von Hausswolff meets him on his own ground, giving space to his cracked, timeworn voice. The song is beautiful, but also marked by an uneasy tension between their starkly different vocal ranges. When they sing separately, the contrast between age and youth is bittersweet and moving but when they merge, the harmony falters. It’s a risky duet that doesn’t quite blend yet also has to be appreciated because of the bravoure.

A bit further on Stardust stands out as another centerpiece. Von Hausswolff delivers a dramatic and gripping vocal performance driven by pounding drums and a thick, pulsing bassline. It’s a career highlight, but the momentum doesn’t hold. Aging Young Woman, a duet with rising superstar Ethel Cain, returns to an atmospheric, organ-dominated soundscape. Their voices blend well, and the mood is intimate, but the simple pop structure feels out of place for von Hausswolff’s more progressive instincts. Its unhurried gloom stretches too long and alas loses impact.

On the final stretch of the album there is more coherence. Consensual Neglect is a rich, layered instrumental that slowly builds before bursting open with bright, intense energy. Struggle with the Beast, featuring Filip Leyman (synths) and Otis Sandsjö (saxophone), feels like the full arrival of what the album hinted at earlier. It’s massive, heavy and unexpectedly majestic and indeed is like facing a mythical creature head-on. After this climax, the closing trio of ambient-leaning tracks provides much-needed calm. Unconditional Love, featuring her sister Maria, stands out most: a warm, intimate moment carried by simple organ notes and gentle vocals.

Iconoclasts ultimately marks a pivotal moment in von Hausswolff’s career. It is an epic, ambitious work where she steps away from fragile explorations of the line between chaos and beauty, and instead pushes toward something broader and more confrontational. But ambition comes at a cost. Several tracks and transitions could have been tightened to create a more even experience. The gaps between exploration and coherence are too obvious and von Hausswolff doesn’t always bridge them successfully. Even so, Iconoclasts stands head and shoulders above what most artists could achieve. Ultimately von Hausswolff shows that she is willing to push forward, to question herself, and to embrace risk in pursuit of something greater.