The Sound of Music: Anna von Hausswolf Elicits Victorian Nostalgia on ‘Dead Magic’

Dead Magic unravels with an irresistibly Victorian sound and theme. The entire album represents a critical ode to this transformative period. From vaguely religious references to the conveyance of unadulterated female rage, Dead Magic encapsulates the era.

Written by Zachary Bolash 

Photo courtesy of Ander Nydam

There is no word more apt to describe Anna von Hausswolf than mysterious. Her brassy vocals and signature pipe organ create songs equally jarring and evocative. Hausswolff's music parallels the sharp vocal timbres and pipe organs of a liturgical service. In the Swedish artist's 2018 LP Dead Magic, Hausswolff tethers listeners to the past — namely, the draconian and violent Victorian period. 

The reign of Queen Victoria marked the Victorian period in Great Britain from 1837 to 1901.. Through aggressive legislation, Victorians culturally transformed England into a society grounded in high morals and evangelicalism, emphasizing self-restraint and philanthropy. While a deeply religious time, these decades also oversaw  significant social progress aimed at  improving material conditions for women and children. The religious yet progressive nature of the Victorian era created tension; while the English patriarchy sought to aid women's health, the same society  severely restricted their sociopolitical lives. Dipping with anger and disenchantment, Anna Von Hausswolff perfectly captures this centuries-old tension in her modern record, Dead Magic. Here, a feminist movement forms.

From the first beat of "The Truth, The Glow, The Fall," the track transports listeners to the socio-politically and religiously conflicted period. The song opens with Hausswolf’s soft, beguiling voice over a low-hum organ. Hausswolff meditatively repeats the phrase, "After the fall."  The vocals and instrumental eeriness create a sonic vortex; the sounds delivering themselves in a menacingly slow-paced and hollow form, like the sound of a titan looming over a village. Then, a sonic transfiguration occurs. Hausswollf's vocals become grittier, and the organs sharpen. Here, Hausswolff fully embraces the Victorian era's conflicted spirit. In the song's latter portion, the artist cries to an unseen lover, asking, "My sweet John / My dear John, oh my love / Will we fall?" These lyrics brush on the themes of love, religion, and femininity. "The Truth, The Glow, The Fall," more or less, serves as the thesis for the LP. These lyrics represent the first instance where Hausswolf delves into the Victorian era's social issues: how obsessive love can contribute to sexist and religious violence. The desperation in the narrator cry to her unseen John may provide false credence to Judeo-Christian notions of women's codependency rather than this behavior stemming from abusive dynamics. Hausswolf later explores this theme in "The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra”.

While "The Truth, The Glow, The Fall" wades in ambiguity, "The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra" is sonically and thematically unequivocal . The track starts with a simple percussion line that soon explodes into a heavy orchestra of strings and drums — it exudes evil. Hausswolff's vocals, however, shift the trajectory of the song. She sounds desperate and angry, declaring, "My feet are not enough / Oh, to save me" and, "His search is not enough / To find me." The track explores love in the Victorian era, reflecting its feminist and religious underpinnings through chronicling the fictitious story of a murdered wife. The music video depicts Hausswolf’s burial by a man dressed in vaguely religious clothing — a Protestant button-down and trousers. When Hausswolf emerges from her resting site, she chases the camera, yelling, "And you cry / Who is she? / Who is she? Who is she to say goodbye?" The delivery of these lines conveys claustrophobia; Hausswolff’s desperation signals that her past lover severely constrained her, minimizing her as a mere other in the relationship and someone easily disposed of. To Hausswolff, it appears that women do not even have the right "to say goodbye," as she casts incredulity at the sheer notion. Similar to many Victorian women, death to die represented liberation — a break from the sexist violence wrought by heterosexual marriages. 

"Ugly and Vengeful" exemplifies Hausswolff's anger towards religion and patriarchy. Hausswolff vulnerably states, "I'm restless, I'm older / I'm heavy like a stone." Soon, Hausswolff embodies an elderly woman in the line, "I'm staring at my bones." Hausswolff's geriatric character does not sit content in a rocking chair. She is furious. By the track's midpoint, Hausswolff's feeble vocals transfigure into an enraged yodel. Alongside a billowing instrumental, she declares, "Die for the Son, for the Son, for the Son / I said to die for the Son, for the God / 'Cause he wants to have my Gloria." The lyrics represent a broad sweep of criticism apropos of the Victorian era. Hausswolff's character expresses outrage that religion and paternalism sacked her socio-political life. Society pigeonholed 19th-century women into caretaker roles, expecting them to sacrifice themselves for their sons in the name of God. 

The final two tracks of Dead Magic blend into one grand overture. The fourth track, "The Marble Eye," stands out as an instrumental, deeply contrasting with the intensely lyrical songs before it. It brandishes Dead Magic's aesthetic teeth — a four-minute organ piece that sounds like the muffled wail of a steamboat. The track weighs down on the listener similar to the Victorian era's dark aesthetic and prickly conservatisms. Like the first track, "The Truth, The Glow, The Fall," "The Marble Eye," wades in the aesthetic of the period rather than coming to thematic conclusions. The last track, however, ends on a definitive note. "Källans återuppståndelse" which roughly translates to “The Resurrection of the Source” in English, feels unburdened compared to the hefty penultimate track. The organ emits a lighter quality, and Hausswolff's vocals take on an uncharacteristically optimistic and floaty sound, sharply contrasting with her meaner timbres on the previous tracks. She croons, "To see your face and to see your smile / And all the traces that I have left behind / And I see souls change to mark my home / The glorious I shall become." This track ends Dead Magic on a surprisingly content note: Despite the immense issues of the period, love's beauty — an idea developed during the Victorian period — persists throughout time. 

The five-track run of Dead Magic, from its powerful awakening in “The Truth, The Glow, The Fall” to its bittersweet conclusion in “Källans återuppståndelse,” captures the broad spectrum of the Victorian era’s themes through brooding lyricism and instrumentation. From Hausswolff’s angry declarations at her homicidal lover in “The Mysterious Vanishing” to the geriatric wails in “Ugly and Vengeful,” she touches on every corner of the period: the staunch social conservatism, religious piety, and the resistant feminist movement that defined the influential era.