“Ceremony”, by Anna von Hausswolff.

It is challenging to start with a church organ as the main instrument on a record: its sound is resounding and determines a very strong personality (Emerson, Lake & Palmer demonstrated this in the early seventies). This young Swedish composer is also brave and determined. Ceremony is her second album, and on it, she intersperses instrumental and sung songs, but she softens the power of the instrument so that the result does not frighten the listener. Thus, among the influences she acknowledges as her own (from Diamanda Galas to PJ Harvey, via Nick Cave or Thom Yorke), the ones that appear on this album are the sweetest: Elizabeth Fraser (Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil) or Kate Bush (Anna doesn’t mention her, but she does exist). More sombre in her titles than in her sound, we could also consider her a kind of gothic Enya.