It took Anna Calvi three years to make her Mercury-nominated debut album; the result was a poised, dramatic record in which the Londoner placed herself in the grand tradition of Siouxsie Sioux and PJ Harvey.
The follow-up, recorded in just six weeks, is more impressionistic. Calvi’s sings much of it in a mannered whisper, her vocals enveloped by a dreamlike mix of distorted riffs, insistent rhythms and ornate orchestrations. “Go deeper,” she chants at one point; her brand of introspection may have a stagy quality but it’s no less atmospheric for that.
Anna Calvi
One Breath
(Domino)
