Anna Calvi – Anna Calvi (2011) FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz Time – 39:45 minutes 415 MB Official Digital Download – Source: Qobuz.com Front cover Anna Margaret Michelle Calvi, better known as Anna Calvi, is an English singer-songwriter and guitarist. Her eponymous debut album was released on January 2011, and using vintage analogue equipment, created “a velvet Wall of Sound that justified the hype in the buildup to its 2011 release”. The album peaked at No. 40 in the UK Album Charts reached No. Gta 5 setup tool download for pc. 17 in France, and entered several European charts.
The album has been nominated for the 2011 Barclaycard Mercury Prize. Citing the likes of Debussy, Captain Beefheart, and Nina Simone as her main influences, it’s clear from the outset that Anna Calvi isn’t your average, run-of-the-mill singer/songwriter. She may have been tipped for success by everyone from the broadsheet music press to Brian Eno, but her blend of sultry blues-rock and dark, mysterious flamenco is a million miles away from the chart-friendly output of her fellow Sound of 2011 nominees. Her self-titled debut, therefore, is unlikely to reap the same commercial rewards as the likes of Jessie J and Clare Maguire, its uncompromising, gothic, David Lynch-esque nature certainly won’t spawn any bite-size TV ad soundtracks or airplay favorites your mom can sing along to. But in a music scene dominated by female solo artists, Calvi’s romantic but often sinister ten songs certainly helps her to stand out from the crowd. Opening track “Rider to the Sea,” sets the scene immediately, a brooding instrumental whose atmospheric twanging guitars would provide the perfect score should Quentin Tarantino’s much rumored Kill Bill 3 ever come to fruition. Calvi’s haunting and intense vocals first come to the forefront on “No More Words,” a gloriously menacing number which evokes the shimmering distorted harmonies of My Bloody Valentine.
But it’s on the grandiose “Desire” when Calvi really unleashes the impassioned post-punk tones that have drawn favorable comparisons with the likes of Patti Smith and PJ Harvey (whose regular collaborator, Rob Ellis, is also here on production duties). Backed by an impressively tight backing band, the likes of “Suzanne and I,” a future James Bond theme in the making, “I’ll Be Your Man,” which would sit comfortably on Florence and the Machine’s Lungs, and “Blackout,” which evokes Phil Spector’s expansive Wall of Sound, prove Calvi isn’t averse to delivering slightly more accessible material. But it’s the more unconventional “The Devil,” which undoubtedly provides the album’s highlight, a mesmerizing, stripped-down fusion of classical, rock, and flamenco that showcases her virtuoso guitar skills, and her effortless shifts from whispering restraint to primitive aggression before ending in layers of drenched feedback. By the time the epic strings have reverberated on closing track “Love Won’t Be Leaving,” you’re left in no doubt as to why the industry appears to be so excited about her. Capturing the intensity and raw emotion of her captivating live shows, Anna Calvi is an ambitious and always intriguing debut which heralds the arrival of a unique and inventive addition to the plethora of U.K.
Anna Calveras
Female singer/songwriters. Tracklist: 01 – Rider To The Sea 02 – No More Words 03 – Desire 04 – Suzanne And I 05 – First We Kiss 06 – The Devil 07 – Blackout 08 – I’ll Be Your Man 09 – Morning Light 10 – Love Won’t Be Leaving Download:.
Anna Calvi recently listed classical composer Claude Debussy, filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai, and Flamenco music as influences on her self-titled debut album. While none of these signifiers seem to directly shape her music, Calvi's record feels like it has much in common with cinema and literature. She uses sonic textures to evoke feelings- from spaghetti-western guitars to her lung-busting take on gothic melodrama. Musically she's indebted to a lineage of female songwriters from Edith Piaf and Patti Smith to PJ Harvey. The latter comparison is bolstered by the appearance of longtime Harvey collaborator Rob Ellis on production duties.
His rangy, atmospheric handling of the music is one of the record's standout qualities. While the sound is suitably bombastic, Ellis also takes care to open up enough emptiness in the mix to allow Calvi's twisting guitar to snake with menace. On the strongest moments, such as 'No More Words', Calvi pushes herself into darker territory, as Ellis allows cavernous space to open up, her voice and guitar sounding as if they are being played into a black hole. It's also one of the softest songs on the record, crafting a coiled feeling when Calvi's voice quietens to a whisper, hanging like a thread but never snapping.
The restraint has an edge to it that feels provocative. Still there are moments where Calvi ratchets up the drama too readily, and sometimes hams it up- see 'I'll Be Your Man', which comes across as campy. More often than not, however, Calvi gets the balance right: 'Suzanne and I' feels grand as it lurches from bare guitars underpinned by pounding drums into a skeletal breakdown.
The delicacy of its second half- ghostly, yearning singing and spacey fingerpicking- makes for a bigger payoff when the drums kick back in and her guitar doubles the vocal lines, giving the ending a truly anthemic quality. On much of the record Calvi explores the pained romanticism of goth with references to the devil, darkness, and unrequited love.
These passing allusions are reduced into something elemental on 'Desire', with its impassioned wail against loneliness, as Calvi sings, 'You don't have to be lost'; it's a rare moment of togetherness and empathy on an album where Calvi can sometimes seem cold. She dresses up in the same outer strength as Piaf often did, but without the same sense of underlying vulnerability. Calvi's outstanding vocal tone and arrangements carry the emotional punches, while her lyrics can occasionally take a backseat role. She never allows herself to sound truly exposed, and this adds to a sense that, for all its perceived boldness and big climaxes, the record never seems unhinged or fragile. It can sometimes feel more like a series of controlled demolitions than something from the gut.
Anna Calvi Anna Calvi Album
But once you accept these shortcomings and give yourself over to Calvi's wall of theater, there are plenty of excellent moments to lose yourself in.