We often scratch out a life, sometimes with a plan, sometimes spontaneously, not always knowing where it’s going to lead us. Personally, I’m still figuring things out. One of the great things about music is that it’s like a journey too, especially for a musician.
Singer-songwriter Anna Tivel is on a musical journey and she’s in it for the long haul. Some ten years has passed since we first heard her affecting vocals with her steadfast acoustic guitar unfurling an array of interesting stories about people, places, love and despair. Back in 2022, Anna Tivel released one of the best albums of the year with Outsiders. It actually topped my best album list for 2022. But rather than ride the wave of critical acclaim, Tivel got back on the road doing what she loves best. Connecting with people and places. How she crafts her songs certainly helps me to feel a real connection to her even though we have never actually met. Interestingly, some seven thousand nautical miles is the divide that separates us. Yet, as we all know, music is the universal language that connects all people on a fundamental level, and that kind of makes me feel that Tivel is right there with me in the same room.
Amongst Anna Tivel’s biggest fans there was great excitement about her new album Living Thing. It’s a wonderful follow up to Outsiders which feels maybe a bit more advanced, more nuanced and if anything, a wonderful snapshot of where she is at in her progression as a musician. From first listen, I was very pleased to hear her willingness to continue to experiment sonically. It’s small touches like these which will undoubtedly go a long way to further her along on the path in her life she has worked so hard to scratch out.
Some of you might not know I have reached out to Anna three times over the past seven years. It’s a honour to do so, especially knowing how incredibly busy she is as a touring musician. It’s always interesting touching base with her. Without fail, she reveals something about herself that helps to explain how humble and thoughtful she is as a person. And this new interview is no different. Here is some of what we talked about.
Anna, it’s always a thrill to catch up with you. You are one of the more prolific songwriters I follow these days. Honestly, there has hardly been a break between albums and touring. Or so it seems that way. Do you find that being constantly active keeps you writing? Or would you prefer more time away from music?
Great to catch up with you as well Rob, apologies for the tour induced delay. I suppose I just move at the pace of my creative urge, which has always felt natural. I try to protect the core hunger to write and sort of orient everything else around that, try to let it come in waves and flow as it does. An eternal balancing act that always need attention. Music and songwriting is the way I express things so it feels like an integral part of my spirit, easy to spend lots of time on it. Only the business side wears me out, but it’s not so hard to keep that noise in the background, keep writing and making albums and playing shows at the forefront.
Your sixth studio album Living Thing is finally here after you teased us with three singles from it earlier this year. What was making this album like for you, and how did it differ from Outsiders (2022) and maybe your projects from the past?
Living Thing was written and recorded in that most isolated beginning year of the pandemic. I wrote all the songs in one big rush of emotion as the world shifted and struggled communally. Because it wasn’t possible to gather a band, I brought the songs to my dear friend and long time creative comrade Shane Leonard and we made it over the course of a month, just the two of us bringing everything down to the studs and then building it slowly back up together. Shane produced, engineered, acted as the band, mixed, really just gave his entire musical being to the project in the most astounding way. I’ve only made albums live in a room so far, just playing music with people in real time. It was a whole other adventure to deconstruct and go wild and try everything. I think because the world felt so dark, we just wanted to go way far out there and joyfully make something bombastic and hopeful and rhythmic and alive. So much of Shane’s musical mind comes through on this album and I really like having a document of that particular moment in time with my wonderful and talented friend.
How do you try to create a sense of home in the place(s) you recorded Living Thing in?
Shane and I made the record over a month in the garage studio he built in his backyard in Eau Claire, WI. I lived back there, slept on the couch among the mics and cables, cooked meals straight from the garden with Shane and his amazing wife and kiddos, made myself part of the family for awhile. In such an isolated time, it felt really special to immerse myself in their world, spend all day making sounds and then widen the lens and join the family at night.
Why did you decide to name the album Living Thing? Was there something about that phrase that fit best with the themes expressed on the album?
When I started to gather the songs together and think about recording, it became apparent to me that I wrote a way more hopeful batch of thoughts than is perhaps my usual bent. Songs come from the things that stick to me in the world, the things that move me, people’s stories, ordinary struggle and wider themes that keep bubbling up. This album ended up full of songs that felt like little celebrations of aliveness. How strong and inventive we are in the face of everything. How beautifully drawn to uncertainty and wonder. The title comes from a line in the song ‘Disposable Camera’ that felt representative of the expression as a whole.
In many ways, I feel like your music has been a constant, subtle evolution over some ten years now. On the new album I’m thrilled to hear you are continuing to experiment sonically. For instance, Two Truths has these electronic beep sound effects which heightens the atmosphere of the track. Tell us how you went about adding these textures to the song? Was it an accidental discovery? And what did you love about its sound?
The sonic world of this album really comes from Shane’s experimental mind. I’m very much a words animal and get very into how each lyric flows into the next, writing extra verses in the studio, etc. Shane and I set out to be as free and experimental on this one as we could and all the technical know how of that came from him. We sampled 8 track symphonies backward through an echoed loop, I read poetry into lofi mics, Shane spent hours upon hours dreaming up intricate melodic basslines. He showed up with all these vibrant sonic ideas each day and we just said yes and tried to explore them as fully as possible. He has a very special sound and song mind and I feel eternally lucky to rub shoulders with him in the studio over the years, this album especially felt like a true collaboration, my words and intention and his musical know how and exploration combined.
In recent months I spent a lot of time listening to The Doors Riders On The Storm. Then imagine my surprise when I heard your track Gold Web and the sound of persistent rain throughout it. It’s fair to say nature takes centre stage here, especially those last two minutes with rain softly dancing on the tin roof and an occasional squawking bird. It’s an ingenious way to close the album to give us time to reflect. What was the inspiration behind this? I imagine you recorded the rain yourself?
A lot of the record was made in the summer in WI and they have epic rain and thunderstorms that I love so much. For that song, we just threw up a mic outside under the eaves and I played right inside with the door open, just one take into a tape machine, sort of a departure from the deconstruction and experimentation of the rest of the album, but we both loved having a simple moment that was just a song and the rain.
Out of curiosity Anna, do you spend much time wondering through Oregon’s transformative wilderness? If so, what do you love about it? How does it warm your soul?
Oregon is incredible and I try to get out in the forest as much as possible but don’t do it half as much as I’d like. There’s a very unconstrained true wilderness that exists in the northwest of the states, a gorgeous craggy, misty, fern filled woods world. It just feels untouched and powerful, makes me feel small in the best way.
My favourite song from the album is arguably Disposable Camera. Here you continue to explore the big roller coaster we call life. It’s ups, downs, twists and turns. Can you tell me something surprising about it?
Disposable Camera came busting out in one night as songs occasionally do. I think I was craving a chaotic exploration of being alive, a big messy wordy pile to yell, getting born and dying and everything in between. The pandemic just felt so muffled and isolating, maybe it felt medicinal to just yell about living.
The joy of the unexpected is what continually surprises me about your songwriting. I guess like Disposable Camera, Altogether Alone is a philosophical rumination about life and humanity. Can you tell me what inspired you to write this?
That one is probably the first song I wrote in this batch, in the very early days of the lockdown when all the neighbors were out of work and fearful but checking in on each other and leaving notes in sidewalk chalk outside each others’ houses. The way uncertainty and common struggle brings love to the surface is forever beautiful.
I think it’s fair to say you are a prolific touring musician. That said, some people say you can get a much better sense for a musician’s personality when you see them try to connect with their audience. Do you agree?
Artist come at sharing their work in all sorts of ways, some are incredibly open and others need to stay a little hidden to protect a sensitive and quiet core. I love watching all the different ways people come at performing, watching how people change over time as they learn and grow and go through things the audience will never know about. I’ve learned so much from singing in front of people, from talking with them after the show, sleeping on their couches, exploring their towns. I’m not a born extroverted performer, just trying to find more and more ways to be honest and generous on stage. It’s a lifelong journey for sure, constantly teaches me all sorts of powerful and difficult things.
Anna, how much do you let your guard down on stage? Is there ever a time when you feel naked figuratively? But I guess touring is something that has always excited you? Otherwise you wouldn’t do it.
It’s an ever changing thing I think, something I really try to hold up to the light as I go about my touring life. There’s an urge to share and connect for sure. Always. And an urge to be unobserved somehow, for the work to be heard and appreciated without my face and body and speaking and personality being part of the experience. Mostly I can feel myself forever working on becoming more and more authentic as a performer, whatever that means that day, trying to be very open and generous with my spirit, sharing the quiet, strange, sensitive, loving place that the songs come whether or not that’s a very polished performance. I’d rather just try to let myself be real and try to really feel people in the audience and create an exchange that feels honest.
Finally Anna, and before I let you go. Sometimes I just want to listen to music that provokes thought and emotion – music that has a message and a real voice like yourself. Thank you.
Thank you so much for listening over the years Rob, it really means the world. Hope to meet you in real life someday.
Rearview Mirror 
She seems really cool
I’m all new to Anna Tivel. While reading your post and interview, I was listening to the new album and like what I’ve heard!
Thanks for sharing, I haven’t checked in with the new one yet.