Anna Mieke
Theatre
Nettwerk
18 November 2022
If Anna Mieke has not registered on the radar of all folk and acoustic music lovers over the past couple of years, that could all be about to change. One listen to the track Seraphim on her new album Theatre makes that a near certainty; it is a beautiful song inspired by childhood road trips with her uncle, blasting music out of the vehicle. That it captures this sense of motion is notable in itself, but that it does this so gorgeously with echoes of Nick Drake and the mantra-like excursions of This Is The Kit is truly attention-grabbing.
During the hypnotic opener Twin, Anna Mieke sings of how “sometimes things are better left unsaid”, which somehow captures the hazy vibe that consumes this whole record. There is a suggestion of imagery in the outdoor pools and humidity, but these flash past your eyes and ears in a moment, carried along in the momentum of the guitar syncopations and fever-dream heat. This theme rises again in For A Time with the “sun burning our skin,” a tune that turns down an open road as the singing ends, seemingly into freefall off towards the sunset. By contrast, Go Away From My Window is positively sedate, a vibration from the darkness that trills with magic. Red Sun is similarly oblique, like a painting that only makes sense when you stand back, not trying to focus too hard.
The whole album walks the line between warm, fuzzy memories of the past and feelings left behind in childhood experiences re-awakened by sounds, locations and sensations whilst simultaneously pinning a perceptive awareness of the banal, workaday realities of modern living. It is a small wonder that Anna has colourful images of the past in the backrooms of her mind; her upbringing was anything but mundane. Her childhood included a wide-ranging musical education, such as learning Māori songs in New Zealand and traditional songs in Bulgaria; lifestyle adventures such as cycle rides over the Pyrenees in Gibraltar and jungle trekking instilled what she describes as “that otherworldly feeling, somewhere totally alien to all your senses.” It is the intersection between these experiences shaping her being whilst inhabiting the urban realism of an inner city, airless and oppressive existence that the whole of ‘Theatre’ strives to capture. That Anna’s pathway to musical proficiency is as particular as her upbringing adds to the unique flavour, she is self-taught on piano, guitar and classical cello, as well as nurturing individualist approaches to the bouzouki, vocals and harmonizing.
So, on the back of a lifetimes journey that, in addition to the places mentioned above, also took in periods of residency in Bangladesh, Switzerland and Spain, we find her today residing in Wicklow, Ireland, making noise locally and receiving much-deserved acclaim from both the Irish press and wider Europe. Following her debut ‘Idle Mind’, Anna has continued to pick up recognition for collaborations at the Irish Arts Centre in New York and on a recent European tour, her musical interpretations of the poetry of James Joyce. It is here, though, on the forward-thinking panorama of ‘Theatre’ that her true artistic voice is beginning to emerge. It is a heady tangle of passing feelings, temporary thrills and vivid, heavy real-world matter all wrapped together in pure and lush acoustic folk.
Website: https://annamieke.com