Anna Calvi: Out of the attic

                                                                                 Photography: Kate Garner

14 February 2012

by Poppy Reid

Anna Calvi offers one of those rare, beautiful moments in music journalism when speaking with an artist is much like listening to their music. In this London musician’s case, she is as refined and seductively gothic as her eponymous 2011 debut.

Since the release of her album just over a year ago (through EMI’s Domino Records; after Bill Ryder- Jones from The Coral discovered her), Calvi has met the weight of early complimentary press with critical and commercial success. With the debut written and recorded in her parents’ attic over months of reclusive creativity, the now 30-year- old says it wasn’t an easy transition moving from the calm of homebound recording to tour buses and foreign festival stages.

“I did just focus on [recording] and didn’t do much else,” she half whispers. “So it was a bit of a shock to go from that to touring all the time, but it’s been nice to get out and see the world.”

With a degree in music and an understanding of stringed instruments which dates back to 1987, it’s surprising to hear Calvi speak of the label signing as if it’s on par with finding a twenty-cent piece, heads up. “I didn’t have to go ‘round to labels trying to get someone to find me,” she remembers. “I feel lucky that I didn’t have to do that because I think I would have found that really difficult. I don’t think it would be fun for anyone really, it’s not what you want to do as an artist.”

Having just finished touring with the Laneway Festival, Calvi successfully sent Australia’s proverbial jaw to the floor, as she seared feverishly through her spaghetti-western guitar solos with brazen assurance. However, her personal expectations are minute compared to the feted comments from ambient magnate Brian Eno, the Mercury Prize Chair of judges and fashion houses Gucci and Karl Lagerfield; these days her suppositions are similar to those a mother would ingrain before her child’s first school concert. “I do have expectations,” she says. “Just day-to-day expectations. To just sing well and perform well; I always try to do my best.”

If it’s hard to believe her eager hopes stop behind a closed stage curtain, it is only because of extols which have likened her excepted trajectory to Patti Smith’s or her musical intuit to that of Joanna Newsom. “Brian Eno gave me a lot of support and is really positive about my work and that’s a thing that I hold very dear to me,” says Calvi. “I don’t feel pressure, I just felt relieved that someone liked what I was doing, that was the main thing. “I’ve definitely expressed my gratitude; we’re in touch and I let him know how everything’s going.”

Calvi is of course, incredibly humbled, but in her effacing arch she says, “Everyone’s got an opinion and it’s up to the individual who’s opinion matters; but everyone’s got something to say about something and it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day.”

The former advocacy from Eno has since blossomed into a friendship of sorts where the now famous Smith comment is now a distant treasured memory.

“It’s really sweet and wonderful that he said that but it’s more just the conversations that we’ve had together about music and about what I’m doing that really mean a great deal to me,” she explains. “He said that it was ‘Full of romance and intelligence,’ and ‘What more could we want from art?’”

Calvi’s relationship with the culture that adores her is complex and ambiguous, but the disconnect is fitting. Years of both classical and contemporary training teamed with her ability to pair sinewy, gothic elements with her charmingly subtle mien have incited both wonderment and a litany of comparisons. Her favourite so far is that of Korean- American singer Susie Suh. “I find it funny because I’ve never heard any of her records and I don’t know any of her songs,” she fusses.

“It’s really bizarre to be compared to someone that you don’t know, that’s kind of funny...I haven’t had a chance to [listen to her music],” she adds. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

The current buzz surrounding Calvi is focused on album number two, however she remained tight- lipped regarding any details. Besides the fact much of her time since her debut has been spent on tour, the material which has formed is apparently far too embryonic. “Because it’s such early days I don’t feel ready to talk about it yet. But it will be different from my last album,” she says firmly. “It’s still forming in my mind so I don’t feel ready to talk about it to people.”

This month will see Calvi gallivanting across Japan before she returns to London to write new material. With the hysteria that comes akin with touring, a step back into self-elected solitary is just the creative bubble she needs to fuel the merciless fire in her belly. Whether she’ll rent a studio is still undecided but in any case a flight back to the nest is always an option for this songbird. “I know that I can always go back to the attic if I want, which is nice.”