Anna von Hausswolff – “The Mysterious Vanishing of Electra”
There was a night when I happened to put this song on. I hadn’t planned to listen to anything, but somehow this one found its way through.
The sound drifted in slowly. The pipe organ barely moved at first, but it lingered in the corners of the room. I could almost feel the space around me change, though nothing really did. The organ had been recorded inside a cathedral in Copenhagen. That might explain the way it seemed to hold something older than itself.
Anna von Hausswolff made the song during a short span of days, and you can tell that it stayed close to her while she worked. The pacing doesn’t rush. Her voice shows up gently, then grows tired of holding back. When she repeats “who is she to say goodbye,” it keeps hanging there, not really going away.
There isn’t much of a story, at least not in the usual sense. It feels more like remembering something after it’s already gone quiet. I read the poem that came with the track. It talked about how a person’s fate might just be a thin line. That line reminded me of some people I’ve known. It reminded me of myself.
When I saw the live version from Montreux, I stayed still for a long time after. It didn’t feel like a performance. It just felt like someone trying to keep hold of something they were about to lose. I wrote a few things down afterward, but the words didn’t feel important.
This song never tries to explain itself. It doesn’t open anything clearly, and it doesn’t close anything either. It just stays. And for whatever reason, I’ve kept it near ever since.
— Spectra Noir