This week, Sweden's Anna von Hausswolff released another live video, this one of the album Dead Magic's centerpiece, the epic Ugly and Vengeful. It's a long song, 19:20 minutes, with slow dirges that build into incredible crescendos and if you give it the time it demands to reveal itself, it's quite a rewarding experience. This is post-rock at its finest.
Many of von Hausswolff's songs contain two movements and Ugly and Vengeful is no different. Somewhere around the 5:00-minute mark of the atmospheric first half, the forsaken heroine of the song declares "I’m restless, I’m older. I’m heavy like a stone" in a quiet, vulnerable voice. The first-half atmospherics slowly build up to an epic finale that starts at around 9:45 minutes, but that finale then reveals itself to actually be the intro to the driving, rhythmic second half. Things really start galloping along at 14:20 minutes when she repeats the same lines as earlier between baroque Phantom-of-the-Opera-style organ lines, but this time in an aggressive and, well, vengeful voice over tribal drum beats. You really have to listen for yourself to experience the catharsis.
We at the Music Desk are mightily impressed with Ms. von Hausswolff and look forward to hearing her perform in the U.S. someday. How perfect would she be for the Big Ears Festival?
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