Anna Calvi
Anna Calvi, Anna’s self-titled debut album, is about lust and love, devils, and a new take on
David Lynchian dramatic surrealism… uh, actually, stop right there. Another thing about this
disarmingly sweet blonde girl is that she’s better at defining what she does than anyone else. No
‘the songs just come out’ banalities here. Anna Calvi knows what she’s doing, and why. ‘It’s a
record about the internal forces in life which are out of your control and can take you over, and
how you survive them. It explores intimacy, passion and loneliness. There is an element of
darkness to the record but there is also a sense of hope. This album is the culmination of my
whole life up until now.’
And there are good reasons why that life is suffused with a darkness. The story begins with a
baby girl, born in London, and struggling to survive. Anna Calvi spent most of her first three
years of life in hospital.
‘The way I dealt with that was to create my own world. And that’s what my relationship with
music is – a world of my own creation that I escape into. I was always a dreamer. The early
things stick with you.’
Growing up with her music obsessed Italian father, Anna was exposed to an eclectic array of
sounds which ranged from Captain Beefheart to The Stones, to Maria Callas, combined with an
early understanding of classical music developed through childhood violin lessons. She would
come to identify the work of 20th century composers, Messiaen, Ravel, and Debussy as an
influence, attracted in her words “to the impressionistic element of the music”, the feel of which
she would try to recreate on guitar, an instrument she was compelled to learn on discovering
Django Reinhardt and Jimi Hendrix at the age of 13. Combining all these influences she aimed to
make her guitar sound like an orchestra, but only instinctually; “I don't try and achieve this by
using lots of pedals- My Vox amp, a reverb pedal, and then’… she puts her hand somewhere
between heart and gut… ‘it comes from here.”
In the following years Anna would immerse herself in other influences such as opera, West
African music, the blues of Robert Johnson and Bukka White and in particular flamenco- the
passion flamenco dancers exude in their stance and style having had a massive impact on Anna’s
fierce, upfront stage persona, and the outfits she and her band choose to perform in, the visual
element of Anna’s art being of huge importance to her. It’s this thoughtful focus on the visual
side of things that leads Anna to clearly identify how the work of film directors Wong Kar Wei
and Gus Van Sant has also influenced her music, remarking on her admiration for “people that
make beautiful films where the cinematography tells the story”, something Anna attempts to
mirror in her own work.
Anna reached a crossroads at 17. After considering art school, she made a last minute decision to
take a degree in music. And, once that was done, she finally made the decision to sing. ‘I’d
always wanted to be a singer, but it was hard for me because I’m so shy. But I just worked on it –
five or six hours a day. I was very secretive about it. It was the scariest decision that I’ve made
because of the kind of person that I am. But slowly, slowly, slowly, this big voice emerged.’
Anna found her musical twin when she met Mally Harpaz in 2006. ‘She actually began playing
drums with me. But I heard a harmonium being played and just thought it was so beautiful it
made me want to cry. There’s something very timeless and stoic about it. I asked Mally if she’d
give it a go. She’d never played one before but she’s the kind of musician who can just pick stuff
up.’
The next, and last, recruit to the Calvi less-is-more aesthetic was drummer Daniel Maiden-Wood.
‘He’s very intuitive. And he listens, which is really rare in a drummer. It wasn’t a conscious
decision to not have bass when we play live. It was just that I wanted Mally to be the orchestra of
the band. They are both such great musicians, and I like working with restrictions. I love the
rawness of the three of us. And I love space in music. And it’s exciting, thinking, “How do I
make this sound like a giant string section when I only have this guitar?” That’s always the way
I’ve worked.’
The trio emerged from their nocturnal bunker every once in a while to play some shows. Young
Brit-folk star Johnny Flynn asked Anna to support him on tour, and, at the Manchester gig,
former Coral guitarist Bill Rider-Jones happened to be there, and be smitten. He immediately
called Laurence Bell at Domino and urged him to sign her. ‘It all happened really quickly, ‘Anna
recalls, ‘We were making this album in this tiny studio and we had nothing. I had to arrange and
play all the string parts. All the choirs are just layers of me. Suddenly I had the opportunity to go
to Black Box Studio in France which has all this beautiful vintage analogue equipment from the
‘60s. I only wanted that for specific songs. But I wouldn’t have had that if Domino hadn’t come
along. And even though I would be doing this anyway, because I go mad if I’m not making
music, when you’re doing twelve-hour days and putting all your time and energy into something,
and all the time thinking, “No-one may ever hear this”… it is difficult. It’s nice to come out of the
rabbit-hole and into the sunshine.’
As well as benefiting from Laurence Bell’s early support, Anna found yet more outside
encouragement from Brian Eno, which came about when a man who happened to be a friend of
Eno saw her perform at London’s Luminaire, and urged music’s most eminent producer and
agent provocateur to check her out. He did, and was enchanted by her series of wonderful
stripped-down performances The Attic Sessions. Eno was so taken by Anna that he asked her out
for lunch. ‘He was really lovely. I gave him my early basement demos, and he loved them, and
since then he’s been a real mentor. He came along at just the right time. He was the first person
from the outside world who heard what I was doing and validated it. It was quite a pivotal
moment in my life. He sent me a letter saying that the music was full of intelligence, romance and
passion, and what more can we want from art? It was like the water at the end of the desert.’
The element of light at the end of a long, dark tunnel permeates both the music of, and the story
behind, the album. ‘I just wrote and recorded all the time on an eight-track in my parents’ attic. I
then spent two-and-a-half years making this album in secret in a basement studio. It was very
unhealthy, actually. I didn’t see the sunlight for a long, long time. It was such a great experience
to then go and work with Rob Ellis’
Rob Ellis is, of course, the producer, composer and musician who has had plenty of experience
collaborating with strong female artists through his years with Polly Harvey. What did he bring to
the party as Anna’s co-producer?
‘He’s old-school rock ‘n’ roll… you know, “Hit the drums harder!” Which I love. We both share
a love of classical music… he loves the same composers as I do. So I didn’t have to explain what
I meant when I said that I wanted I wanted a guitar or a shaker to sound like an orchestra. It was
great to find someone who understood.’
Anna is justly proud of her first album, and picks out two songs where she feels she’s got close to
what she ultimately wants to achieve. ‘I’m very microscopic about detail. And there’s a lot of
sound-painting in Love Won’t Be Leaving. I see music very visually. And I want the music itself
to express the story as much, if not more, than the lyrics. I think I achieved that on Love Won’t
Be Leaving. I’m happy with The Devil, which I recorded in France. It’s a good example of how I
wanted to make the guitar sound like another instrument. I wanted the middle-section to sound
like the strings on a Hitchcock soundtrack. It crescendos towards an explosion, but in a real and
honest way. It's not about bravado.’
But before the album, the first release. Anna has embarked on a one-woman mission to reclaim
the ancient and noble idea of the debut single that stands alone from an album she views as a
complete work. Hence Jezebel. ‘It was written by Wayne Shanklin. But it was the Edith Piaf
version that I heard. It just really had an effect on me. I love Edith Piaf. I love how much emotion
and guts she puts into her singing. Its something I try to do in my music….be as open and
passionate as possible. Jezebel just seemed like the right thing to put out first. The album is such
an entity in itself. It’s a story and a journey. So I didn’t want to take anything out of the album
before it was released. I wanted people to hear the album as a complete thing.’
At the time of writing, Anna is preparing for a tour with Grinderman – highly appropriate, as
Nick Cave is, of course, the master of love songs that present love and sex as wild and
uncontrollable forces. I put it to Anna that that idea is as close as one could get to a concept for
the intense unleashings of lust and need that make up her debut album.
‘That’s fair. Music’s so sexual. How can you not express that in some way? Playing guitar is a
sexy thing to do. And there is that thing of… when you love someone so much you think that you
could kill them. I’ve definitely felt that.’
Anna Calvi smiles sweetly.
Website: www.annacalvi.com/
