The black-and-white cover image that adorns All Thoughts Fly, Anna von Hausswolff's fifth long-player and Southern Lord debut, is arresting. It depicts the artist in the cave-like mouth of a massive, anguished stone gargoyle, the central attraction in the Bomarzo Parco dei Mostri - Sacro Bosco, a 16th century Italian garden designed by Pier Francesco Orsini after the death of his wife. The overgrown locale is filled with these sculptures of tortured mythological beings rising amid its twisted vegetation. Orsini perversely wanted to inflict emotional trauma on visitors so they might empathize with his inconsolable grief. Von Hausswolff was so affected by her own visit that upon returning to Sweden she composed and recorded these seven instrumental pieces for solo pipe organ at Gothenburg's Örgryte New Church. Orsini may have created this garden as an expression of his pain, but von Hausswolff sees it as the dawn of creation: Wild, unruly, and untamed. Her sojourn evoked deeply resonant emotions, unfettering her spirit and imagination. Her goal is to communicate the same to listeners.
In addition to the pipe organ, von Hausswolff and co-producer Filip Leyman grafted on sound design elements in post-production. The addition of these electronic processes alternately confronts and melds with the organ's vast tonal range (it's tuned in quartertone meantime temperament). In so doing, she directly confronts the listener's emotional center.
Opener "Theatre of Nature" employs fugue-like chord constructions alongside dynamic meter changes in a kind of overture that is spiritually akin to poignantly intelligent prog rock. "Dolore di Orsini" is a mournful, restrained processional, using variously shaped chords and droning sonics amid the room's natural reverb to evoke strong inner impressions. "Sacro Bosco" (watch the video, shot in this "garden of monsters") is introduced by breathing organ pedals before quarter-, half-, and whole tones emerge with dark, roiling energy. Her exploration of the instrument's lower register is foreboding and tense, yet suddenly transforms into a gloriously transcendent harmonic statement approaching the celestial. "Persefone" uses a simple unembellished lyric figure during its first half, then builds out a dramatic ledge through subtle drones and minor-key progressions before fading out. The title piece recalls the early minimalism of Terry Riley, with swirling counterpoint, relentless repetition, atop propulsive, rhythmic motifs; it's as if von Hausswolff were building a mantric bridge to the ecstatic. Closer "Outside the Gate (For Bruna)" is introduced with sparse chords in a dolorous, harmonic motif. Subtle dramatic notions episodically emerge through slow, recurring fugues. All these elements are eventually embellished, almost subsumed, by abundant layers of ambient electronics under minimal melodic flourishes. On All Thoughts Fly, von Hausswolff yearns to express the unspeakable -- that which lies not just beyond words but stands apart from them. She offers a musical authority that can only be fully realized when openly acknowledging and submitting to one's own vulnerability.