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ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF shares stripped back live video for ‘Stranger’. UK dates next week including London Oslo on Dec 8th

December 3, 2015

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ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF

– UK LIVE SHOWS NEXT WEEK
– SHARES LIVE VIDEO FOR ‘STRANGER’
– ALBUM ‘THE MIRACULOUS’ OUT NOW ON CITY SLANG

“Anna von Hausswolff is a genuine one off… The boldness of her vision is compelling.” – **** The Observer
“From ethereal balladry to explosive free form space rock… Cyclopean in scale and ambition.” – The Wire
“Brooding, epic and utterly captivating: the Dark side has never sounded so appealing.” – 9/10, Loud & Quiet
“Vast and apocalyptic.” – 8/10, Uncut
“An undeniable power… Part siren, part lightning rod for the disenfranchised, she sings with unfettered abandon.” – 4/5 Mojo
“A huge, brooding record that fuses ethereal fantasy with the portentous drama of rumbling organ drone” – The Quietus
“Our shaky grasp on reality is tested by the sonic assault created by her dramatic pip organ, wailing vocals and post-rock dynamics” – Sunday Times Culture
“Ceremony may have easily conquered the sophomore slump, but The Miraculous is the moment where von Hausswolff truly arrives as an artist.” – 8.5/10, The 405
There is clearly little interest in skirting with the borders. Go hard or go home. And my, has she gone hard this time…. A complete revelation.” – 8/10, Drowned In Sound
“Stunning, immensely immense, harrowing at times and yes, quite awe-inspiring” – Dangerous Minds

Having released her apocalyptic new album ‘The Miraculous’ last month to wide critical acclaim, Anna von Hausswolff finishes 2015 with a European tour, including dates at London’s Oslo on Dec 8th and Leicester’s The Cookie on Dec 9th.

Today she also shares a live video of the album’s closing track, ‘Stranger’. A stripped back version of one of the album’s lighter & more reflective moments, this simply shot video was recorded at Studio Underlandet in Anna’s hometown of Gothenburg, Sweden. It sees Anna swap the volume of the pipe organ for a guitar, and in doing so emphasises that she doesn’t need anywhere near 9000 pipes to give a hugely powerful performance. She is accompanied by Karl Vento who plays guitar in Anna von Hausswolff’s live band and on The Miraculous.

When Swedish singer/musician Anna von Hausswolff was young, her parents used to tell her stories about a place the family loved to visit. The location is steeped in a complicated history: a home, for example, to Sweden’s traditional folk music, it’s an area of outstanding natural beauty, but once provided the backdrop for a momentous uprising against the country’s king during which thousands of peasants were slaughtered, leaving its landscapes bathed in blood. It became, to her, a place of mystery, magic and terror, and, though she won’t say where it is, she still returns repeatedly, if sometimes only in her imagination. She calls the place Miraculous.

Much of the music on The Miraculous draws from these stories and images while making excessive use of the Acusticum Pipe Organ in Piteå, Northern Sweden, whose colossal sound – with nine thousand pipes, it’s one of the biggest of its kind in the country – swells heroically throughout the album. Inaugurated in 2012, and designed by Gerard Woehl, it lends the record a unique edge, enabling moments of true drama and supplying the brooding drones and dreamy soundscapes that provide the album’s foundations.

This magnificent instrument’s unusual features – built-in glockenspiel, vibraphone, celeste and percussion, as well as what von Hausswolff describes as “a screaming bird sound” produced by “pipes half covered in water” also further broadened the record’s aesthetic. In total, five days were spent recording the majority of the album’s substance live with it and her band, Ulrik Ording (drums), Joel Fabiansson (guitar), Karl Vento (guitar) and Filip Leyman (synthesiser, also the record’s producer). Afterwards, they decamped to Gothenburg for a further month’s work, before mixing it Filip’s studio.

The Miraculous is out now on City Slang in Europe except Scandinavia, where it is released through Anna’s own label, Pomperipossa Records. Other Music released it in North America.

Anna von Hausswolff live dates:

02.12. HAMBURG (DE) Nordwind @ Kampnagel
03.12. KÖLN (DE) Gebäude 9
04.12. BERN (CH) Nordwind @ Dampfzentrale (SOLD OUT)
05.12. DRESDEN (DE) Beatpol
06.12. BERLIN (DE) Nordwind @ Sophiensäle
08.12. LONDON (UK) Oslo
09.12. LEICESTER (UK) The Cookie

11.12. DEN HAAG (NL) State X New Forms
12.12. GRONINGEN (NL) Vera
13.12. PARIS (FR) Le Petit Bain
21.01. MALMO (SE) Babel
22.01. COPENHAGEN (DK) Jazzhouse
25.01. STOCKHOLM (SE) Dramaten
05.02. LULEÅ (SE) Kulurens Hus
07.02 UPPSALA (SE) Uppsala Konsert & Kongress
02.03 BERLIN (DE) Berghain
03.03 LEIPZIG (DE) Werk2
09.04. GÖTEBORG (SE) Konserthus

Links:

Evocation video
Pre-Order link
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