flamenco dance steps

Nothing To Hide: Anna Calvi Interviewed

Anna Calvi's eponymous debut album is a thing of natural beauty. Atmospheric, dramatic, dark, brooding and thrilling, it is certainly the record I've played most this year. And live too, Calvi and her small troupe of musicians create an intimacy that draws you in only to then blow you away with the drama of it all. In person she's even smaller than you'd imagined, but like on stage, she has an enigmatic presence - even when she isn't saying very much. She appears to think about each response deeply, and when I ask a question that's not really a question, she mocks me with a titter. There's clearly intelligence behind her imperturbable and flinty blue stare, though you sense being interviewed isn't her favourite part of the job. She's engaging, don't get me wrong, but while many artists will lie and say it's all about the music, Calvi clearly got into this to be a musician.

Already a critical darling, the wider public are waking up to Calvi's brilliance thanks most recently to impressive turns on Jools Holland and at Glastonbury. But it's in France that, thus far, she's had her biggest commercial success. "I think there's a tradition of romantically minded singers that do passionate work, which I think is part of the reason I seem to have gone down well there," she says. Can she sing anything in the language? "Yeah, I can sort of sing 'Jezebel' [her Edith Paif cover] in French. I haven't yet got the courage to sing it in French to French people. But yeah, it's something I'd like to do." She's just returned from a tour of the US and will be playing the Quietus stage at Field Day this August. Having seen her in smaller venues I wonder how it might translate to arenas and in the open air.

Might you consider bringing in more musicians for larger audiences, like at Field Day, where the chances of distraction for people who've come to see a whole load of bands rather than just you are greater?

Anna Calvi: No, I really like working with less because I think it encourages you to be imaginative. And I like to imagine the guitar is almost like an orchestra, like an extension of my voice, where it's just a real tool for expression. With less you can do more with it and I really like the dynamic of just the three of us. I think it's a good number to have in a band and I think we can be very dynamic. It's very intimate because there are only three of us but with the harmonium and with the guitar style that I choose to have you create a huge sound as well, which is the best of both worlds really.

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