Gothtober - Anna Von Hausswolff :"Dead Magic"

I am not sure why it's taken me this long to really check this chick out.Her newest album came out back in March so I am late to the party here.  She pretty ambitious and is not content like some of her peers leading you into a dark drone, as her songs have a more adventurous feel to their arrangement that has more in common with Dead Can Dance than it does Chelsea Wolfe. It's more like if Lisa Gerrard covered all of Brendan Perry's songs. Though in a much more experimental fashion as she is prone to go off into Swans like atmosphere. So there is a fucking lot going on here, but it's dark and I like it. It falls into the weird exotic brand of goth that is some where between world music and neo-folk. Though organs and synths seem to be the driving forces of instrumentation.

"The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra" is darker and more like Diamanda Galas meets the Swans. It has a heavy droning pound , but evolves into something very lush. There is even guitar, like rock guitar, think Pink Floyd not metal, but it's good. I'm not into 16 minute songs, but She blew me away with the first two songs so I am going to trust her on this though I can already hear where there are two and a half minutes she could have shaved off the beginning so in truth if we are really going to nit pick here, where that is what I do this could have been a 12 minute song. It really takes off with her vocals five and a half minutes in. While I don't hate what is transpiring with the sprawling thing I would have preferred to songs that gave me more of what I got from the first two. I can hear elements of that in where she ends up going, but I'm selfish and I want more of what I want. By the end of the song it does pay off as she takes you to sonic places just as exotic as Dead Can Dance. Sometimes it is hard to hear where the pipe organ begins and the other instruments end.


"the Marble Eye" is darker and sounds like it could be the soundtrack to an 80s horror movie about vampire elves. It is however an instrumental song and I feel without her voice it's a pointless endeavor, but that little interlude was good for what it was . The album closes with a light folk ballad that is given more of a Julee Cruise treatment, so if David Lynch isn't using this he is missing out on a good opportunity. I'll go ahead and round this up to a 9.5, as it does get a little thick on the atmosphere and floats away, but when the album is good it's beyond incredible and more than makes up for  drifting off.