Promoting and Supporting Women in Music
Having recently been wowed by her latest track ‘Don’t Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy’, and immensely excited about her upcoming album, Hunter, we couldn’t miss the opportunity to catch boundary-breaking artist Anna Calvi at Heaven last night.
Jon Mo was there to capture Anna in action…
Hunter, the upcoming album from Anna Calvi, is out 31st August.
Jon Mo
@jonmophoto
Introducing the first track from her first album in four years, Anna Calvi describes ‘Don’t Beat the Girl Out of My Boy’ as being beyond definition. The song is beyond definition because queerness is, and the track isn’t a departure from her previous records, it is an extension; an unleashing; an entirely honest, boundary-breaking, binary-destroying hit of truth.
‘Don’t Beat the Girl Out of My Boy’ is about the defiance of being happy. It’s about pleasure without shame, allowing yourself to be exactly who you want to fucking be, and being proud because you’re you. It’s about the primal rage of being human and the joy when a tiny piece of it, of yourself, makes sense.
Not only is it a queer song from a queer album, Anna Calvi isn’t breaking free from or out of anything, she’s embracing everything that she is and we are with every fiber of her spirit.
If you’re not yet aware of Anna Calvi and her work, you will be soon. She’s been nominated for the Mercury Prize twice, a Brit award or two (I forget, mostly because the Brits like to highlight ginger guys with loop pedals, and that’s not a language I know how to speak, je ne parle pas Ed-whatever), and has collaborated with Marianne Faithfull, Amanda Palmer and David Byrne. She’s also toured with the likes of Grinderman and the lead singer from The Smiths.
When I name my top three guitarists of all time, Anna Calvi will be there. While ‘Don’t Beat the Girl Out of My Boy’ lacks the “traditional” sound (in quotes, because traditional is the antithesis of a wild word) of her former albums, the sneak peaks and roaring covers she’s been posting to social media in the run-up promise a little of everything.
And it was within those, in her manifesto, where she said it best:
I’m hunting for something – I want experiences, I want agency, I want sexual freedom, I want intimacy, I want to feel strong, I want to feel protected and I want to find something beautiful in all the mess.
I want to go beyond gender. I don’t want to have to chose between the male and female in me.
I’m fighting against feeling an outsider and trying to find a place that feels like home.
I believe that gender is a spectrum. I believe that if we were allowed to be somewhere in the middle, not pushed to the extremes of performed masculinity and femininity, we would all be more free. I want to explore how to be something other than just what I’ve been assigned to be. I want to explore a more subversive sexuality, which goes further than what is expected of a woman in our patriarchal heteronormative society. I want to repeat the words “girl boy, woman man”, over and over, to find the limits of these words, against vastness of human experience.
I believe in the female protagonist, who isn’t simply responding to a man’s story. I go out into the world and see it as mine – I want something from it, rather than just being a passive product of it. I’m hungry for experiences. Sometimes things seem clear, and other times I feel lost. I feel strong and yet vulnerable; I wear my body and my art as an armour, but I also know that to be true to myself is to be open to being hurt.
The intent of this record is to be primal and beautiful, vulnerable and strong, to be the hunter and the hunted.
Hunter, the upcoming album from Anna Calvi will be released 31st August. Tickets for the European tour go on sale on today, 8th June.
Em Burfitt
@fenderqueer
After a series of teasing and inspired images across the realms of social media, guitar chanteuse, two-time Mercury Prize nominee, and London’s own Anna Calvi has announced a series of three solo shows due to take place in Berlin, Paris, and London this June.
Calvi’s 2011 self-titled debut record was pretty fucking rad and 2013’s incredibly personal (and equally as fab) follow-up, One Breath, made the sophomore album curse look like a sentiently feeble and try hard myth. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Anna—alongside musical soulmate, Mally Harpaz, onstage and once you have, there’s no way on earth you don’t want to keep going to see her again and again.
While her third album has yet to be announced, the message delivered with the tour dates was one that verified that it’s just around the corner and that all three shows will be full of brand new yet-to-be-heard tracks.
Several European festivals will also have the pleasure of Anna’s performances but these three shows, in particular, are the beginning of something new for Anna Calvi, and at Get in Her Ears we cannot wait to see what’s in store.
From Anna:
“I remember looking into your eyes, I remember our energy, I remember you testing me, I remember me testing you, I remember feeling the most alive in those moments, I remember the dam breaking, like a primal scream. I want it again, I want to see you again.. This new music is everything I wanted it to be. I want you to hear what I’ve created and laboured on with love for so long, for you, for us.”
From us, one of our favourites:
Tour dates June 2018:
12th June – Berlin, Germany – Berghain
15th June – Paris, France – La Gaîté Lyrique
19th June – London, UK – Heaven
Em Burfitt
@fenderqueer
I was a dick as a kid and considered mainstream music to be Uncool. This was after the phase where ‘Barbie Girl’ was one of the only CD singles I’d bought myself, right after ‘Mulder & Scully’ by Catatonia, ‘course. Because Cerys has always been pretty cool…
The older I’ve got, I’ve eased up on my neurotic need to sought out the avant-garde, and I’m well open to admitting that Ariana Grande has a legion of what my generation calls bangers, but I’m still drawn to music that pushes me off the edge of the nearest precipice. Because then I get to indulge in l’appel du vide whilst actually still getting to go home at night.
Music saves lives, and Mally Harpaz is one hell of a music-maker.
There isn’t a single instrument out there she can’t play, and even before I had the chance to talk to her about her processes, I’d walk into an Anna Calvi gig and immediately go and see what new piece of equipment she had on stage with her.
2017 marked not only the process of professionally recording her own compositions for conceptual art videos by visual artist Clara Aparicio Yoldi, but also the the start of a series of concerts masterminded by Mally to not just play said compositions, but to also share the stage with a rotating band of incredible musicians from all walks of life.
Blind Dog Studios is Mally’s brainchild and heartchild – and I say heartchild because the mind has a tendency to stifle the creative process for fun, and Mary Wollstonecraft sure didn’t keep his brain in a silk bag. The concert series this year has introduced us to artists like Hazel Iris, Ciara Clifford, Colonial Sun, VÄLVĒ, Hana Piranha.
19th December saw the last gig of the year at The Victoria in Dalston – a fantastic way to end the year. And I can happily assure you there’ll be more next year, and that you should catch any/all of them that you can.
We even got a guest vocals and guitar spot from Mally’s best friend and musical soulmate, the one and only Anna Calvi; a wonderful surprise, just over three years after her sold out orchestral gig at St. John-at-Hackney.
2017 was a great year for the London music scene and an even greater one for us girls, and 2018 looks to be shaping up to be even better, especially with projects like Blind Dog Studios flipping the scene on its head.
Em Burfitt
@fenderqueer
Get In Her Ears 