Hailing from the north of Sweden, Maria W Horn is an experimental composer concerned with manipulating time and space through sonic extremes.
Horn’s work oscillates between minimalist structures and piercing power electronics, simultaneously utilising both digital and analogue synthesis, as well as acoustic instruments and audiovisual components. Her work examines aspects of human perception, such as how audiovisuality and changes in stimuli can conspire to transcend everyday life and conventional modes of perception, ultimately invoking alternative mental states.
Recently, Horn released Kontrapoetik via Portals Editions and XKatedral. Tackling the seemingly serene, shockingly turmoiled past of her home of Ångermanland, Kontrapoetik takes the form of a counter-exorcism project. It sees Horn weave together multiple histories and lineages of the area; she draws from archival material from a conflict between the Swedish worker’s movement and the military back in the 1930s, tracing threads of conflict that weave further back to the documented execution of women accused of practicing witchcraft in the 17th century. As part of Horn’s research, she researched a satanic feminist sect, which, in an effort to dismantle its misogynist traditions, conducted ceremonies and rituals to provide counter readings of the Christian genesis narratives.
She is a part of Sthlm Drone Society, an association working to promote slow and gradually evolving timbral music, and co-operates with the label XKatedral.