Anna Calvi’s song­writ­ing is pow­er­ful and pas­sion­ate, while her stage pres­ence is intense and quite inward look­ing. She does­n’t go for dra­mat­ics and audi­ence-pleas­ing dra­mat­ics. She does­n’t need to – those astound­ing vocals — oper­at­ic, unwa­ver­ing, and rich with emo­tion are enough.

Beyond the impact of her live per­for­mances, she has been shift­ing her focus to writ­ing and record­ing new mate­r­i­al – with plen­ty of new inspi­ra­tion to fuel her com­po­si­tions. Her forth­com­ing EP, Is This All There Is?, to be released March 20th, fea­tures four tracks with col­lab­o­ra­tions with Iggy Pop, Lau­rie Ander­son, Matt Berninger and Per­fume Genius.

The open­ing track on the EP is God’s Lone­ly Man with Iggy Pop – an dra­mat­ic and elec­tri­fy­ing track, accom­pa­nied by a strik­ing video direct­ed and pro­duced by Lui­gi Cal­abrese and Dominic East­er, edit­ed by Rianne White and shot in Mia­mi. The film cap­tures the charged con­nec­tion between the two artists. Speak­ing about the col­lab­o­ra­tion with Iggy, Anna says: “He’s dis­rup­tive, raw, and hon­est – a sin­gu­lar force. His pres­ence was so per­fect for the nar­ra­tive of this song.”

Is This All There Is? is the first instal­ment in a tril­o­gy of records which explore iden­ti­ty, inspired by Anna’s own per­spec­tive shift after becom­ing a par­ent. She asks how we can reclaim inti­ma­cy, and what it means to feel tru­ly awake. Says Anna: “Hav­ing a child was so trans­for­ma­tive it made me con­sid­er the pos­si­bil­i­ty that every­thing in life could poten­tial­ly shift, and that is scary but incred­i­bly free­ing. I didn’t want to take any­thing for grant­ed any more. I want to exist in the best way for my child. I want­ed to ask the most basic human ques­tion – is this all there is?”

My first instinc­tive thought on see­ing the title to this new EP was a reminder of a song my par­ents used to play when I was a child – and I may not have heard since. Is That All There Is? – an unusu­al num­ber sung by Peg­gy Lee, writ­ten by Jer­ry Leiber and Mike Stoller, used to send a bit of a chill through my young soul. While Anna Calvi does­n’t see life as a series of dis­ap­point­ments, nor pos­sess the nihilis­tic view­point shared in that song, there’s a def­i­nite sense of read­just­ment and expec­ta­tion brought on by the trans­for­ma­tive birth of her first child.

EP track­list­ing
1.      God’s Lone­ly Man (feat. Iggy Pop)
2.      I See A Dark­ness (feat. Per­fume Genius)
3.      Com­put­er Love (feat. Lau­rie Ander­son)
4.      Is This All There Is? (feat Matt Berninger)   

There are two live dates com­ing up:
Sat 18th July –The Piece Hall, Hal­i­fax with David Byrne
Sun 26th July – Cardiff Cas­tle, Cardiff with David Byrne

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Anna releas­es a new song on War Child’s col­lab­o­ra­tive new album HELP(2); Sun­day Light March 6th. More infor­ma­tion here.
Is This All There Is? is avail­able to pre-order on exclu­sive red vinyl, stan­dard vinyl. CD and dig­i­tal­ly. Pre-order: Dom­Mart | Dig­i­tal