Interior

Who said musicians had to stick to one art form? Not the fabulous Rosa Anschütz, a Berlin-based creative – or if you like, ‘transmedia artist’ – whose prodigious vision and zeal bursts out across everything from visual art installations to textile design to raw, attitude-laden music-making, sometimes in combination. Having previously flexed her moody, beats-laden, curiously crisis-appropriate aesthetic across two LPs including 2022’s punky but fragile Goldener Storm, the 20-something Anschütz goes even deeper into her person on this, her third studio album. Spoken and sung lyrics referencing folklore, wilderness and the lessons of heartbreak are framed by instruments including trumpet, blowsy flute and pedal organ, with electronic flashes adding lightning zings to her analogue journeying. Space is of the essence here, carving dramatic pause, allowing her sweetly louche voice to float solemnly, heightening the sense of leftfield spirituality. The loveliness of opening ballad ‘By Gaining Many Somethings’ serves to make its oh-so-dark follow-up, ‘Can You Hear the Dull Scream’, all the more menacing.

Anschütz’ vocals veer from low and resonant (the Bjork-esque ‘A Place Somewhere, We Found the Riptide’) to high-register pure (the church organ-led ‘My Heart’s in the Highlands’), cradling individual words here, flinging phrases down there. The album might have done without the sudden male voice on ‘Rain Upon God’s Hill’ but there’s hardly a misstep elsewhere. Closing track ‘In Zu Festen Händen Wird Man Nicht Wäm’, the only German language song, is an airy tapestry of mutterings, trumpet, church bells and warm, polyphonic coos. An album to disappear into.