But hardline Catholics<\/a> had caught wind that the church was about to welcome an artist whose output The Quietus had described as \u201cpost-rock, prog, doom metal, modern classical and high church music all coexist[ing] in uneasy alliance\u201d.<\/p>\n Denouncing her as a \u201chigh priest of Satanic art\u201d, the protesters barricaded the outside of the building, preventing concertgoers from entering. Inside, von Hausswolff sat alone, staring at the organ and finally concluding she had no choice but to cancel.<\/p>\n \u201cI had the bishop\u2019s blessing. It was an instrumental work,\u201d she says of the tour, which was also marked by protests in Paris \u2013 where she had to switch the venue to a secret location \u2013 and in Belgium<\/a> and the Netherlands<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was about pipe-organ music and the spirituality within music and being respectful towards that sacred space, working across genres and cultures. All of a sudden I became this kind of iconoclast, and that was really not my intention.\u201d<\/p>\n Von Hausswolff is recalling the incident amid a hectic schedule that has seen her perform on three continents in as many weeks and will be followed by her first performance in Dublin<\/a>, at the National Concert Hall, next week.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Anna von Hausswolff at All Together Now 2026: Not just brilliant but genuinely surprisingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Life has been helter-skelter for von Hausswolff ever since the release last year of her album Iconoclasts, a project that, among other things, is a meditation on the trauma she experienced as she became persona non grata to radical Catholics in France.<\/p>\n The Nantes incident left a deep mark on her and significantly influenced Iconoclasts, her sixth album, which has become the most acclaimed record of her career. (Among other accolades, it won the Swedish equivalent of the Grammy.)<\/p>\n Across its 12 tracks, she embraces and celebrates the idea of being an iconoclast \u2013 someone prepared to face down their most fervent critics. It was not a label she sought, but she has now taken ownership of it.<\/p>\n Iconoclasts is a beautifully doomy listen, blending von Hausswolff\u2019s signature apocalyptic pipe organ, banshee-like vocals and a maximalist heavy-metal ambience: it is music that would feel equally at home in Tolkien\u2019s Middle-earth and in a mosh pit where things are about to kick off.<\/p>\n But for all its unearthly qualities, it ripples with very human pain. On the song The Iconoclast, for instance, von Hausswolff rewinds to the state of mind she was in after the controversy in France, pleading for room to be herself. \u201cGive me some head space, give me a mirror,\u201d she howls. \u201cI need to lean into myself for a while.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking back on that controversy, she says that, as a woman bringing heavy-metal aesthetics to baroque church music, she was an all-too-easy target for people trying to whip up a moral majority.<\/p>\n [\u00a0Stevie Wonder in Dublin: Sky-high ticket price worth it for a few hours with a musical geniusOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n \u201cThere was an election in France, and there was a right-wing party that wanted to gain votes from Catholics all over France. They wanted to find the most traditional point of view \u2013 and used me as a tool,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd so I became like a little brick in their play, where they would encourage people to come and demonstrate against this concert of mine. It was their way of finding community within the integralists\u201d \u2013 who believe Catholic law should have legal status \u2013 \u201cand the extreme Catholic community. <\/p>\n \u201cThen of course you have traditional Catholics; they are not all extremists, perhaps \u2013 but maybe they don\u2019t approve of contemporary or not strictly religious music within the church.\u201d<\/p>\n This wasn\u2019t von Hausswolff\u2019s first brush with infamy. In 2013, she posed for a photograph wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the name of the Norwegian black-metal band Burzum, whose far-right founder, Varg Vikernes, was convicted in 1994 of the fatal stabbing of a rival musician \u2013 and who was later convicted in France of inciting racial hatred.<\/p>\n \u201cI have had a great share of controversies throughout my career. The first one was me just being a little bit stupid, [wearing] a Burzum T-shirt for a photograph for an interview. <\/p>\n \u201cI was not thinking about how that could be interpreted. I did not think about how people would think I could potentially be a supporter of his views. It didn\u2019t cross my mind, and it sounds so naive, but I was truly very naive when that happened. That became like a lesson of presentation, and how important it is,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n [\u00a0\u2018Simon Amstell was horrible to me on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He was mean\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n Von Hausswolff acknowledges that wearing Burzum merch was a mistake. In the case of what happened in France, however, she was in the right. She is proud to have stood up for her beliefs and continued with her tour. <\/p>\n \u201cIt encouraged me to stick to what I\u2019m doing, be proud of what I\u2019m doing and not let extremist views come between me and my work \u2013 and stand my ground if I believe strongly in what I do.\u201d<\/p>\n Blending saxophone, organ, guitar and Kate Bush-goes-crowd-surfing vocals, von Hausswolff\u2019s music is a collision of the modern and the ancient, the comforting and the terrifying, the dark and the fantastical. She has been compared to neogoths such as Dead Can Dance, while on Iconoclasts she collaborates with hell-raisers old and new in the form of Iggy Pop<\/a> and Ethel Cain<\/a>.<\/p>\n But amid all this beautiful bombast, her songwriting is capable of remarkable sensitivity. On Aging Young Women, her haunting orchestral duet with Cain, she reflects on the pressures put on women as they age, observing, \u201cWe\u2019re getting older by the hour, and every year we have more fear.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be tough. If you\u2019re a man, you\u2019ll never understand what it means to be a woman. You\u2019ll never understand the struggles that we have, what it means to be a woman, especially my age,\u201d says von Hausswolff, who recently turned 40. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a delicate age. You have to make a lot of important decisions about who you are, where you want to be, if you want to have a family, if you don\u2019t want to have a family. You\u2019ve come to that kind of edge of a cliff.\u201d<\/p>\n These issues occur throughout society, but especially in arts and entertainment<\/a>. <\/p>\n [\u00a0The Music Quiz: Which type of Japanese dish is favoured by Spanish singer Rosal\u00eda?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody wants to try and look younger than they really do,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I think women are scared to present themselves as their natural selves, as their natural, beautiful older selves. They\u2019ve been told by commercials and society that they don\u2019t \u2018do\u2019 when they\u2019re 45.\u201d<\/p>\n Von Hausswolff grew up in Gothenburg, where her father had some notoriety as an avant-garde artist. She has a vivid childhood memory of watching him perform a piece in which he locked himself in a bathtub and apparently set it on fire. <\/p>\n She now lives in Copenhagen, where she began work on Iconoclasts almost a decade ago. During that time, she has witnessed the world turn topsy-turvy in all sorts of ways.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first thing that happened was that Trump<\/a> was elected as president. So that was a little bit of a shocker. And then came a lot of activist movements with that. Black Lives Matter came, and the whole Greta [Thunberg<\/a>] environmental movement. And then, of course, the pandemic<\/a>. And that shut everything down. All these great movements were silenced by a pandemic. And then came inflation.\u201d<\/p>\n She sighs, as if temporarily overwhelmed by it all: the memories of Nantes, the world and all its strife, her jet lag. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was a roller coaster of emotions and political happenings throughout the years I wrote this album. It has most definitely affected the outcome. There are a lot of things that are falling apart that are a very integral, important part of the democratic society. It\u2019s a confusing, scary time to witness, to see how a lot of beautiful things are crumbling.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Anna](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/NOTLB7NCZ5HC3IRKGCXD5ZL2BA.jpg\")
Anna von Hausswolff <\/p>\n