Music: Anna Calvi

The Mercury nominee comes to town with the follow up to her breakthrough debut album

There’s a whole heap of attention currently focused on Anna Calvi; her debut album of 2011 was a minor commercial success that developed momentum thanks in part to a deserved Mercury nomination. Consequently, there has been much expectation that her recently released follow up, One Breath, might catapult her into the mainstream. While it is debatable that an artist as musically uncompromising as Calvi will get that far, there’s little doubt she’s capable of sticking around for a while longer, in no small part owing to her passion and focus on the art of music making. Combined with her striking look and general visual aesthetic, and it should be no surprise tha likes of Karl Lagerfeld have called upon her for extracurricular work.

Speaking on the phone from Lisbon, and in the middle of a mammoth world tour, Calvi sounds relaxed (as she always does), despite having to escape the dressing room where her bandmates are noisily making themselves heard, and explains the album’s title thus: “It’s the moment before you’ve got to open yourself up… it’s about how scary that is, but also exciting – you don’t know what will happen next…” Fragility of memory and the permanence of loss are themes that run through the album that like its predecessor has won much admiration.

Her Italian family, Calvi says, “are all very dramatic and slightly hysterical” while the English half is “quite reserved”. And, she can see the two sides at work within herself, and in music which alternates between passages of hushed anticipation to flourishes of orchestral drama.

Calvi practised hypnosis when writing the album, and it’s something her parents (both therapists) practised on her. “I think music should feel trance-like, to take you into another space,” she says, as epitomised on the gorgeous ‘Carry Me’ track. Her first album has notched up nearly 200,000 in worldwide sales, helped along by the presence of one Brian Eno. “He was amazing; he’s been really helpful. He said my music was passionate and intelligent, and that really affirmed things for me. He sang on a couple of tracks on the first album.”

Although she is a highly accomplished guitarist, having learnt from an early age (and self taught) it wasn’t until she had reached her mid-20s that Calvi developed the confidence to sing. “The first show I did as a singer I was terrified. I just remember thinking ‘I just hope people clap at the end’.
As long as they do that, I’ll be alright.” They did, and she is.
Anna Calvi, All Saints Church, Tuesday 11 February, 7pm, £14