The Miraculous

Anna von Hausswolff’s third album, The Miraculous, due out on Friday, November 13, on Other Music Recording Co. (City Slang in UK/EU and Anna’s own imprint in her native Sweden), continues the classically trained vocalist and composer’s transition from the gorgeous chamber pop of her debut towards something darker. After taking up the church organ for her 2013 LPCeremony, this new record was recorded on one of Scandinavia’s largest pipe organs, at the concert hall Acusticum in Piteå, in Northern Sweden, with her band and long time producer/collaborator Filip Leyman. Heavier, darker and more unsettling than anything von Hausswolff has released before, The Miraculous draws on the singer’s background in avant-garde music as well as her love of black metal, balancing beauty with some real ballast. Of the new songs, von Hausswolff said:
“The main inspiration for this record comes from a book called Källan by Walter Ljungquist. It´s about kids on a spiritual journey, their search for something holy, the disappointment of not finding it, the joy of searching, and the importance of letting go of control. I read this book when I was out touring with Efterklang in 2013 and it made a major impact on me. It made me think of the most fascinating place I know. I started to ask myself, ‘why am I so fascinated by this place and why do I keep going back to it?’ When I was a kid my family told me tons of stories about this place. Scary things and fantastic things, both truth and lies. There was, and still is, this weird fusion between reality and fantasy there. Every time I go to there my mind gets really creative and starts to add new stories and images to the old ones. It´s a place of mystery and doubt. It´s highly attractive and very scary at the same time. If I were to search for a miracle, just like the kids in the book, this is the place I would start looking; The Miraculous is my name for that place.”