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Anna Calvi - Hunter (2018)
I never thought I would be able to put a pop/rock offering on this thread. Who could possibly expand our experience of the musical content in the genre of popular songs? Anna Calvi from the UK, that's who. The music in popular recordings is usually restricted to harmless playing to support the almighty vocals and the want-to-be clever lyric. A story set to variations of La-la, La-la and Da-da, Da-da. Everything from "Hot Blooded" to Michael Bolton, that's what is really going on and it sounds like it. Rock licks in ABA patterns don't change that. One would think that if it happened it would be in the Blues end of the spectrum, like Led Zeppelin, rather than the social commentary end, like Billy Joel or Michael Jackson (or Taylor Swift nowadays). As the song goes, "It Hasn't Happened Yet."
Anna Calvi was different from the start. Fifties and Surf era guitar and powerful, insistent, idiosyncratic singing. Definitely not Blues based. For Calvi, her words were the opportunity to compose a piece of real, honest, music as striking as her singing. As time went on her work became more intense as the dramatic nature of both her singing and her playing became overwhelming enough to banish any pop music DNA, and cuteness, and any danceability from the music. One thing very few bands ever dabbled in was dramatic style vocals or playing. The Doors did it sometimes in an Art School, European Art Song corny way. The Moody Blues did a very mainstream vocal and orchestral brand of drama, a very pop approach. U2's stuff did it for a bit, but mostly with Bono's singing. I don't mean drama like a play, rather dramatic playing and vocal styles.
Anna is a fully realized multi-instrumentalist; she could be U2 all by herself. On Hunter, she performs all the guitar and vocal work and shares the synth, bass, piano, and percussion duties. Only the occasional strings lack her physical participation. She wrote every bit of the material as well. You would never guess a woman is playing these guitar parts. While that sounds incredibly sexist, if you listen to Hunter in a good system - a necessity, in this case, to hear just how intense her playing has become, YouTube won't touch it - you will see how I mean that. Most of the songs on Hunter are musically more intense than would be ever encountered on the sales charts. Calvi uses dynamics and atmosphere to outstanding effect. Blending in is not in her vocabulary. She is also in that vanishingly rare group who consider their own vocals another instrument in their compositions. To be honest PJ Harvey has regularly broken the pop song mold for a quarter-century, but she is even less likely to show up in the radio/streaming milieu (I can't imagine "Pig Will Not" on any station let alone one that plays Taylor Swift) and Calvi does it while sounding absolutely nothing like Polly Jean.
As usual, I don't know if a single reader here will like this music, and I expect some will not see a difference from the usual pop music stuff. But I do not think I'm going out on a limb recommending it. Not to sound like a broken record, but I don't see how listeners who find music is very important in their lives and want to try new things could still be without a good streaming service. Twelve bucks a month is nothing next to what cable costs and is less than a restaurant meal or a few cups of decent coffee. Certainly, music is more important than that.
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Re: Anna Calvi - Hunter (2018)
Thanks Clark! I liked most of the album on my first listen. I kept thinking about what the album would sound like on a pair of "full range" speakers. :D
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Elsa Martin with Stefano Battaglia - SFUEAI
This came out three years ago but I found it only last month, streaming on Amazon Music HD. The CD is Elsa Martin (pronounced mar-TEEN, they are Italians) handling vocals and Stefano Battaglia on piano. Both masterfully. I began this thread, if I recall, with Maria Pia De Vito and Martin reminds me, in this recording, of De Vito. Her style and feeling more so than her voice. That is the highest compliment I can give a vocalist. It reminds me of how sad I am that John Taylor died at a gig a few years ago and he can no longer back De Vito. THIS pair did another release a year later, "Al Centro Delle Cose". That one was certainly influenced by De Vito's "Nel Respiro", possibly the boldest vocal recording of all time.
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