"'I imagine the different instruments as colours, so it feels like painting…with my music I like to hypnotise people and take them somewhere else." The pertinent words from the 38-year-old, London-born, singer-songwriter Anna Calvi undeniably resonated in her recent performance at the renowned Roundhouse in London last week. From the mesmeric lighting design, incorporating stark contrasting colours, to the simple yet harmonious instrumentation bolstering her art-rock discography, Calvi produced an indelibly memorable set reeling off her latest 3rd LP, Hunter.
Commencing the evening with the title track from her latest, commercially-successful LP, ‘Hunter’, the synth-laden curtains cascaded down upon the audience packed within the circular-shaped room in Camden. Plucked bass lines and heavy-handed synth chords immediately set the tone, forming the backbone for the majority of songs, thus allowing Calvi a suitable platform from which to graft her painting.
The audience were instantly struck with the breadth and depth of Calvi’s operatic vocal range - this elusive nature played perfectly into her experimental repertoire reminiscent of such artists as Neu!, Sharon Van Etten, and Fever Ray. From the whispers of “I want us in the air of paradise” in ‘Indies or Paradise’, to the wailing vocal solos of ‘Don’t Beat the Girl Out Of My Boy’, Calvi’s voice triumphed amongst the haze of groovy instrumentation played throughout this theatrical performance.
Perhaps taking note from the stoic prior-collaborators of Brian Eno and David Byrne, Calvi imparted such an aura from her onstage presence - wearing a vibrant leather jacket and slicked-back, dark-brown hair, giving an otherworldly impression in this ancient venue. This somewhat androgynous nature to her visual set bled into much of her lyricism, seen predominantly in such tracks as ‘As a Man’, ‘Suzanne and I’, and ‘I’ll Be Your Man’. Namely the latter of these tracks, Calvi constantly swapped and changed such preconceived gender roles, exclaiming “I’ll be your man” underneath such nitty-gritty guitar riffs. Having been coined as a musical member of the 'queer genre’ in breaking such gender conformities with her music, this culminated with a tantalising set for the audience attempting to decrypt the mystery behind these arbitrary aspects of Calvi’s world.
As the evening progressed, however, many of the songs tended to overlap in their structural similarities: beginning with faint synth chords, groovy guitar riffs, and later inviting booming drum clashes to lace it all together. Unfortunately, Calvi’s vocals bordered on trite at times - typified by her reversion to vocal ‘wailing’ when her guitar malfunctioned during its solo section. The all-too-frequent instances of this particular wailing, albeit impressive to any listener’s ears, became fairly unnecessary in the context of such similar song structures littered amongst her setlist.
The much-expected encore brought a series of unexpected surprises, incorporating the last track from her latest LP, ‘Eden’, to reset the atmospheric tone, as well as covering the seminal protopunk band Suicide, with their track ‘Ghost Rider’ as the evening’s finale. The former track offered one last gasp for Calvi’s falsetto vocals amongst the ethereal tones of the track’s facade, and the latter gave a softer recital of the gnarling, bass-driven punk track, bolstered by prolonged synth chords and flaring drum patterns.
This unorthodox cover proved a pertinent one to conclude the show. The track’s backstory was evidently influenced by the colourful world of the Marvel character which transcended into the resonating walls of Calvi’s Roundhouse. Suicide proved not only to be an influence for many punk bands of today, but also for many female art-rock artists championing the current U.K. music scene - namely PJ Harvey, St. Vincent, and Jenny Hval. However, what Anna Calvi proved to her contemporaries is the indelible nature of a show’s visual facade - from the hallucinogenic lightshow, to the elusive fashion design, to the physical exertion from Calvi’s on-stage character. There may be some room for improvements within certain areas of Calvi’s musical repertoire, however, this was certainly a show to remember - one which utilised the venue marvel-ously well ultimately allowing the hypnotised audience a peek into her illustrative world.
8/10
Anna Calvi's latest LP, Hunter, is out now and can be found here.
This review was courtesy of The VLM - the article for which can be found here.
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