Anna Calvi’s favourite cult classic album: “The best kind of pop”
To know Anna Calvi is to love her. The musician is held up by a cultishly obsessed fanbase who are currently chomping at the bit, listening to any new works they can get their hands on as they’re still waiting for the long-anticipated follow-up to her 2018 record, Hunter. She might have provided no insight into when that record might come, but the singer has offered a soundtrack for waiting.
Really, Calvi has been doing everything but an album. In 2020, she released Hunted, a fully reworked version of her album with features from the likes of Idles, Courtney Barnett and Charlotte Gainsbourg. She then turned her attention to soundtrack work as she was put in charge of the score for the Peaky Blinders final season.
On her EP, Tommy, inspired by the TV show, Calvi did share one new track. ‘Burning Down’ is a slower, more seductive sound. Her usually roaring, powerful vocals are softer. She’s playing around with real vocal acrobatics and subtle effects that make her voice even more dream-like.
It seems like in the gap after her release, she’s been gathering new inspirations for whatever might come next. In conversation with NME, she shared her love for one album, which might be a clue to her future sound.
Chosen as her cult classic album, which she believes everyone should hear, she picked out a softer cut in the form of Cocteau Twins’ 1990 Heaven Or Las Vegas. “Liz Fraser’s voice is really amazing, and it’s weird how even though there’s no lyrics it’s so moving through melody alone, and it makes you feel so many things,” she said of the shoegaze staple.
But before the atmospheric sound, Calvi hears something else in the mix: simple, great melodies. For Calvi, the band’s foolproof, accessible foundation allows them to soar. “They have really amazing pop songs,” she said, “even though they’re really obscure.”
In her mind, Heaven Or Las Vegas is a pop album. It begs the question of what pop even means. Really, the genre simply means “popular” but has also come to label music with a danceable tempo, easy-to-remember lyrics, and simple notation. Cocteau Twins certainly don’t tick the box for lyrics, but when it comes to tempo and notation, they might just fit the bill.
Across the 1990 album, there are several sounds that easily coax a sway from the body, and under the shoegaze effects and textures, the songs are relatively simple in form. “The production on every single one is exactly the same, but it doesn’t matter,” Calvi explained. “It really works because it creates this atmosphere, and you can get lost in it.”
That, paired with the most interesting, intricate layers added on top, is what makes it such a vital release for Calvi. “It’s the best kind of pop music that actually makes you feel something as opposed to just being easy,” she said, declaring it a record that you must hear. And in the absence of new music from the artist herself, we’ll take anything we can from her, even just her advice.
