It has been a while since we heard from Anna Calvi so it’s good to see her back. Her pas­sion­ate, oper­at­ic vocals add a unique, haunt­ing inten­si­ty to her com­po­si­tions. Anna’s unique appeal widened after she com­posed and per­formed the musi­cal scores score for sea­sons 5 and 6 of BBC’s Peaky Blind­ers, whose final episode aired in 2022 and her scores were wide­ly released in ear­ly 2024. 

This lat­est song is a cov­er of Bon­nie Prince Billy’s “I See A Dark­ness,” a haunt­ing duet she per­forms with Per­fume Genius. Their voic­es inter­twine in a song about inti­ma­cy beyond romance – the qui­et, pro­found love found in friendship. 

The video – direct­ed by Alexan­der Brown – shows the inti­ma­cy of friend­ship dur­ing a night out, as a moment between two friends is remem­bered over and over; it also shows the sub­tle defi­ance it takes for two women to have a free and hap­py evening with­out let­ting any stranger dis­turb the beau­ty of their bond.

Says Anna Calvi about the song: “So many songs are about roman­tic love. But I want­ed to high­light the romance of the cho­sen fam­i­ly, the depth of con­nec­tion that isn’t teth­ered to het­ero­nor­ma­tive ideals. It’s such a pow­er­ful song about the yearn­ing for inti­ma­cy. I love inhab­it­ing oth­er peo­ple’s songs. When I sing some­one else’s words, I feel like I’m get­ting clos­er to myself some­how, because the songs I choose express some­thing I can’t articulate.”

Calvi also recent­ly launched her own Sub­stack enti­tled Carv­ing Sil­ver In Strange Weath­er where she will be shar­ing unre­leased songs and instru­men­tals, playlists, released and unre­leased live per­for­mances, along­side her own thoughts and explo­rations on artis­tic obses­sions. The first chap­ter on The Gui­tar – Deprav­i­ty and The Divine has recent­ly come to a close. Read it and sign up to fur­ther chap­ters here.

So far, Calvi has just one live per­for­mance planned – an inti­mate head­line show at London’s EartH The­atre on Novem­ber 1 that is now sold out.

Recent­ly she took part in the South­bank Centre’s con­cert trib­ute to David Lynch, and took to the stage in hon­our of the late film­mak­er along­side Jehn­ny Beth, Sophia Brous, Kirin J. Cal­l­i­nan, Mick Har­vey and Conor O’Brien of Villagers.

I See a Dark­ness Anna Calvi with Per­fume Genius out Octo­ber 21st
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Pho­tog­ra­phy of Anna Calvi at Blue­dot fes­ti­val ©oliviarosen/gourmetgigs.com