ONE BREATH
Anna Calvi (Domino)
British singer and guitarist Anna Calvi is a great dramatist. Inspired by her struggle with depression, her second album is a work of simmering tension.
The bombast of her debut self-titled album is deployed more sparingly and to great effect.
The minimalist title track has Calvi confessing under her breath for three minutes, the bass her heartbeat, drums rattling anxiously, until the clouds part and John Barry-esque strings buoy us up into serenity.
Piece By Piece is by turns alluring and disorienting, its shimmering surface shattered by a sudden battery of guitar noise.
Calvi has always been a sophisticated performer, as indebted to Debussy and Edith Piaf as she is Nick Cave and P.J. Harvey, but here she demonstrates the ability to make quieter moments as powerful as operatic ones. An ache can be as potent as a howl.
Tristan, Eliza and Love of My Life are all gritty, head-turning rock songs – the latter as close as Calvi has come to truly impinging on Harvey’s raw and ragged canon.
For the most part here, Calvi sounds more and more like herself. One Breath is idiosyncratic, passionate, flamboyant, classical rock. It might also be something of a masterpiece.
