In his review of Portland, OR-based songwriter Anna Tivel‘s acclaimed 2019 album “The Question“, Mike Davies concluded, “A consummate songwriter, Tivel’s attention to detail, both physical and emotional, draws you into the worlds her songs describe and inhabit, sometimes leaving you in tears, sometimes filled with radiance.” Fans won’t have long to wait for a new instalment from this exceptional songwriter with a voice to match.
On July 16, Anna releases Blue World digitally via Fluff & Gravy with a vinyl release to arrive later this year. In February of 2021, Anna collaborated with Portland musician friends Galen Clark and Micah Hummel to reimagine a collection of songs from previous releases as well as a new single, “Two Dark Horses,” (listen below) from an album due out next year. The resulting project, Blue World, is a sparse and winding exploration of loneliness and love played out on keys, percussion, and one quiet voice.
Anna says: “We chose the songs by story and feel and played them in all directions for hours on end in Galen’s basement in our coats and masks. We wanted them sparse and strange, isolated and alive. Each of these songs exists in another form, from another time when making music shoulder to shoulder in goodsweaty rooms was an everyday adventure. In this year of strange and difficult isolation, I kept craving the sound of the piano, something warm and resonant to cure the vast empty. Galen and Micah agreed to create the sonic landscape and I closed my eyes and imagined each scene in color as I sang. This project felt like breathing again, a chance to be together, to listen and express something with good friends whose music forever moves me.”
Of Two Dark Horses, she says in the album’s liner notes “…this song started as a poem on tour after seeing two horses shrouded in fog on an early morning drive. I was listening to the news and feeling so struck by the amount of humanity and animal rage that can exist simultaneously; trembling anger and deep empathy, hatred and faith, prejudice and love. The poem was an attempt to explore the weight of our animal selves, that flashing and instinctual fear that makes us small and blindly intolerant. And that distinctly human capacity to rise up out of fear, to learn and grow and change and get free.”
Listening to just Tivel’s voice in this sparse setting is quite an ethereal experience. Clark’s piano and Hummel’s responsive jazz-like percussion combine in a way that allow this song to really sink in…and strengthen that link to the poetry of her words.
Pre-order Blue World: https://annativel.bandcamp.com/
Photo Credit: Matt Kennelly