Maria W Horn

Booking Agent : Giorgio Salmoiraghi

Maria W Horn (1989, Sweden) is a composer and performer whose work explores the transformative capacities of sound. Informed by the minimalist tradition of long form structures and gradual transformation, her music employs a varied instrumentation ranging from analog synthesizers to choir, string instruments, symphonic orchestra, pipe organ and various chamber music formats. Synthetic sound is often paired with acoustic instruments in order to extend the instruments’ timbral capacities with precise control of timbre, tuning and texture. The scope of Maria’s music spans from intricate intervallic patterns to searing high-density aural monoliths, informed by her involvement in various underground music practices such as punk, folk music and black metal. In addition to her artistic practice she is also the co-founder of Swedish record label XKatedral.

The new album Melting Pillars of Snow (2026) sees Maria drawing inspiration from W.G. Sebald‘s novel The Rings of Saturn, a poetic reflection following an unnamed narrator wandering along the Suffolk coast in England. As the landscape gradually shifts, the text touches in various ways on the passage of time and the distance between past, present, and future, reflecting both vast temporal scales, such as the cycles of the seasons, deep historical time and microscopic moments and fragments. With the compositions contained in this release Maria evokes a similar sense of stillness, an environment in which the movement of time itself can be illuminated and observed.

The instrumentarium found on this album is Horn’s most ambitious to date and sees her adding a complex array of percussion instruments, wind instruments operating at each extreme of the musical range and electric guitar paired with her regular palette of customized algorithmic synthesis and electronic processing to weave a spiraling spectral tapestry through the audio range. Percussionist Magdalena Meitzner performs specialized techniques on the overtone triangle, dubachi, timpani and tam-tam, as well as pitched wine glasses and bowed crotales. The low end contrabass recorder played by Anna Petrini and the high frequency Shō performed by Mattias Hållsten add contrasting chordal arrangements set in strict metric structures. The ensemble is completed by Mats Erlandsson performing on electric and acoustic guitars, moving from gentle arpeggiated figures to doom-laden drones and feedback howls.

Notable performances and festival apperances include MUTEK Mexico City and MUTEK Montreal, GRM-INA Paris, more editions of Insomnia Festival Tromsø, CTM Festival Berlin, Atonal, Robot Festival in Bologna, Copenhagen’s Organ Sound Art Festival, LOST Festival Parma at Labirinto Della Masone (Ulver, Sunn O))) etc.), more editions of Rewire Festival, Kilbi Festival, Counterpulse San Francisco, Elevate Festival, Donaufestival, EKKO Festival, Otherworldly with William Basinski, Tresor Berlin, Alter Festival, Supersonic Birmingham and a permanent installation project at Luleå Biennial, one of the most ancient and prestigious culture institutions in Sweden, built inside the Vita Duvans panopticon prison.

After releasing the last solo LP “Panoptikon” in February 2024 and touring with the iconic band Swans, Maria W Horn published a new pipe organ release in duo with Mats Erlandsson. Maria is also part of the Funeral Folk project together with Sara Parkman.

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