Anna Von Hausswolff

We spot her there, behind that makeshift table in front of the stage, several minutes after the lights of the Locomotiv Club have come back on. Cheerful and affectionate, mask on her face. Blue, expressive eyes smiling at the fans lined up with copies of "Iconoclasts" and "Ceremony" in hand. Mocking the usual stereotypes, we admire the contrast between her Scandinavian features and her (supposedly) Mediterranean manner, between hearty laughter and little dashes around the table to hug whichever fan asks her for a selfie. But is this really the same person we saw on stage? Is this really the same druidess who howled in the midst of that ritual made of abysses, vertigo and biting frost? Perhaps some listeners, hearing the pitch-black "Dead Magic", didn't picture her as being so bright and funny, but reality never stops confounding expectations. What's certain is that they will have learned something about the many shades a complex, profound figure like Anna Von Hausswolff can take on, both in her art and in her person.

This isn't the first time Bologna has responded enthusiastically to the Nordic musician. It's been more than four years since her last appearance in the city, at the splendid Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi. That was a very different kind of performance, built entirely around her beloved pipe organ, the fruit of the daring "All Thoughts Fly", a record that chose to do without the ace up her sleeve — her voice — and still won the hand. Just like that night, the Locomotiv had been sold out for weeks. A success that only confirms the excellent stretch of career the Swedish artist is currently enjoying, borne out by the critical acclaim given to her latest effort, "Iconoclasts"

And so at 9:45pm we find ourselves all eyes on the stage, warmed up by an opening set from Lillo Morreale. The Italian artist proved a well-judged choice of opening act, his mix of electronics and traditional music chiming nicely with the headliner. The lights go down, five silhouetted figures climb onto the stage and arrange themselves around an empty spot, and the room sinks into an almost liturgical suspension. As if summoned by her acolytes, a pale, blonde-tinged figure peeks into view, greeted by the crowd's jubilation. A wall of sound rises up like an omen — expansive, rich and multicoloured rather than massive and overwhelming. Above this stomach-rattling architecture, the anthem of "Facing Atlas" is declaimed by the crystalline voice of Anna Von Hausswolff.

Unfortunately, from where we're standing it's hard to fully enjoy the contribution of the much-anticipated Otis Sandsjö. Despite the great balance of the band assembled by the Gothenburg-born artist, the saxophonist, her fellow countryman, risks stealing the visual spotlight, catching every eye as he writhes, rapt in his nu-jazz digressions. In these early moments, though, he seems smothered beneath the sonic pressure of distortion and keyboards. Fortunately, the sound engineers step in to fix things, calibrating the optimal balance in time for the next track, which turns out to be one of the peaks of the evening. "The Mouth" arrives spectral and tense, culminating in a final explosion driven by a thrilling drum charge, met with the crowd's righteous delirium.

The impression is that the already excellent "Iconoclasts" is one of those records that has much more to say live than in the studio, expanding to a higher expressive level. Ballads like "The Whole Woman" and "Aging Young Woman" become even more languid thanks to the sax phrasing, free of any set pattern, caressing the reflective atmospheres conjured by the synths and the contemplative tone of the vocals. Still, it's in the long marathon passages that the sonic spectrum expands to its fullest and the collective hypnosis truly takes hold.

The band moves like a large, intricate machine: in the intro to "The Iconoclast", it advances heavily, then slows down to make way for the singer's icy vocalizing, with which she directs all her followers like some tentacular creature. She stops and they freeze, and at times it feels like watching the movements of a hive mind. Now they plunge into a thunderous cacophony, then resurface at their mother's signal, opening up dreamlike rifts amid arpeggios and keyboard loops that wink at dream-pop.

We're not talking about puppets, though: every member has their own distinct personality, and even the most discreet contribution is aimed at filling out a saturated, multicolored palette. Just think of the guitar-and-bass duo who build a rocky, distorted background throughout the whole journey. But she alone pulls the strings, tossing her pale hair, glittering under the bluish and blood-red lights that wash over her. And her voice: powerful, piercing; it seems endless.

We're all thinking the same thing: if she wanted to, she could probably never stop. Always in that high register, never faltering, never a moment's hesitation. Are we really watching a live performance? Could it possibly be even cleaner and more powerful than what came out of the stereo days ago, as we were listening back in preparation for the evening?

Time seems to lose all consistency. The audience is extremely well-behaved, respectful, in reverent silence during the performance of the songs. It doesn't always happen, but tonight everyone is hypnotized by the extreme stretching of the instrumental sections and by that "Ugly And Vengeful", which feels like a chasm opening onto hell, so dark, heavy, vicious and searing is it. She genuinely screams like someone possessed in the final section. All we can do is swallow hard and let ourselves be carried along by what has by now taken on the shape of a full-blown witches' sabbath.

If we want to point out one flaw, one of the most anticipated songs of the evening, "The Mysterious Vanishing Of Electra", is performed in a form that doesn't fully exploit its explosive potential. You expect a lot from the live rendition of the mighty march heard on "Dead Magic". We rub our hands together as we watch Anna from behind, ready to lay into the electric guitar she's just picked up. We get goosebumps after the deathly introduction handed to "An Ocean Of Time". We start to think that the inescapable fate awaiting everyone here is to be swept away by a version even more martial and tectonic than the thrilling one on record. However — although it's interesting that it's given such a particularly majestic and solemn treatment, perhaps precisely to accentuate its author's splendid, sinister high notes — the result feels too restrained and overly weighed down, especially in the first half, gaining a lot more in the finale, where Anna's vocal cords finally steal the spotlight. A slight bitter aftertaste lingers; perhaps we would have liked a more sustained rhythmic foundation, a greater emphasis on the counterpoint between the martial percussion and the crash of the distorted guitars. But it's a minor flaw, one that, incidentally, the ecstatic crowd doesn't seem to share, in the middle of an overall high-level performance, which finds its perfect seal in a "Struggle With The Beast" greeted with jubilation by the crowd and closed out in a crescendo, like carpet bombing from which Otis's usual funky sax emerges unscathed, leading the pace of the entire performance like a pied piper... sorry, a magical saxophonist.

Moved and grateful, Anna Von Hausswolff thanks the whole audience in remarkably good Italian, confirming the special bond that has tied her to our country and its people for years. The looks on people's faces as they leave Locomotiv could tell many other stories about this evening; we'll just say we hope for another chance to see her, and that we won't have to wait quite as long next time. Because some evenings simply demand to be lived again.

Photo contributions courtesy of Maurizio Antonelli

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