Anna von Hausswolff
Singing from the grave
Kning Disk
Anna von Hausswolff does an admirable job crafting a piano-driven album that takes unexpected turns instead of falling prey to clichéd pop structures, with a number of the tracks "Singing from the grave" giving full voice to the talents of its composer. In this way, von Hausswolff successfully avoids the fate of being pigeonholed as 'just another female singer-songwriter,' but her idiosyncratic style has the unfortunate affect of rendering entire portions of the album difficult to get into. While I applaud the fact she avoids a number of avenues already explored by other artists, tracks like "Pills" and "Lost at sea" feel like bizarre, stripped-down Björk-inspired compositions, and, while it is amazing to listen to the whirlwinds von Hausswolff creates with her voice and fingers, it is not an experience that grows more enjoyable with repeated listening. It is more than obvious that Anna von Hausswolff is a talented musician and vocalist, but instead of finding myself lost in the songs, as I did with the gorgeous and haunting "Track of time" and "Above all", I began to feel outside most of the compositions, often unable to forge any connection between myself as listener and von Hausswolff as artist.
- Lars Garvey Laing-Peterson
