While the pipe organ has long been Anna von Hausswolff’s choice of weapon, she is best known for her warbling, dulcet toned singing voice – a prominent feature on all of her albums, alongside a full band featuring piano and a variety of other instruments. So, to learn that fifth full-length ‘All Thoughts Fly’ would be an entirely solo effort, featuring just her pipe organ and nothing else inspires both intrigue and apprehension. It’s fair to say that von Hausswolff’s foray into the avantgarde has developed her sound into something completely different from the uplifting innocence of the likes of ‘Mountains Crave’, one of the seminal tracks from 2012’s ‘Ceremony’. Collaborations with the likes of Wolves in the Throne Room, Swans and Yann Tiersen have inspired a darker side to Anna’s music. Inspired by a need for experimentation, ‘All Thoughts Fly’ is the end result.

Anna states that ‘All Thoughts Fly’ is an homage to the Italian park Sacro Bosco (also the name of the third song on the album), stating “There’s a sadness and wilderness that inspired me to write this album, also a timelessness. I believe that this park has survived not only due to its beauty but also because of the iconography, it has been liberated from predictable ideas and ideals. The people who built this park truly set their minds and imagination free. All Thoughts Fly is a homage to this creation, and an effort to articulate the atmosphere and the feelings that this place evokes inside of me.” Entirely instrumental, there is a palpable juxtaposition between light and dark, the diversity that she is able to produce with a single instrument is truly astonishing.

There are songs such as the aforementioned ‘Sacro Bosco’ which move at an almost sluggish pace, keeping a keening high pitch throughout, while the title track is a constant swirl varying notes that build into monolithic walls of sound. Anna’s voice is definitely missed, however, her talent for being able to cycle through a spectrum of emotion using only one instrument is remarkable.

(7/10 Angela Davey)

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