Now for something a little bit special. Annie A is a one-off collaboration. I confess that the only name I really recognize is Félicia Atkinson, who I finally got into with 2022’s Image Language. The other participants are the poet Christine Petrie, collage-based storytellers Time Is Away, and singer-songwriter Maxine Funke — all of whom I hereby promise to keep an ear out for in future.
That Atkinson album is a pretty decent reference point from which to start talking about this one. Musically, things are pretty similar. Stripped-back drones form a base, either on analogue synth or perhaps fiddle, like an electronic version of the hurdy-gurdy in a folk tune. There is the occasional plinky melody. There is quite a lot of field recording type stuff, mostly of clanking and rustling. The vocals, though, are pushed much more to the fore than the almost ASMR found poetry feel of Image Language. Some are spoken-word; some are half-sung. On the surface, the subject matter is the craft of weaving: there is much talk of looms, and warp and weft. (The group’s pseudonym appears to be a reference to the abstract textile artist Anni Albers, to whom one track is dedicated.) But, you know, POETRY, amiright, and this has lots of resonances around themes of memory, and craft, and resilience, and a woman’s grief for her mother, and grief for her childhood, and so much more. There is a real vividness to the imagery here: Petrie’s line “Every thread needs to pass through the eye of a needle before you begin” jumps out at me every time, for example (and you’ll really have to listen to the record if you want to know why). This is a work which needs repeated careful listening to tease out its meaning, but I think your attention will be richly rewarded.
I bought this from Atkinson’s bandcamp page.
dogrando writes about some records 