Anna Calvi - Strange Weather (2014,EP)
For some, there was an edition of the One Breath album that came with this EP as a bonus disc. For me, there was an edition of the Strange Weather EP that came with that album as a bonus disc.
From the first note I heard her pull from its strings (on Rider To The Sea), I couldn't help finding Calvi's handling of an electric guitar a very sensual musical experience (without even needing to grind it against the crotch, à la Prince), turning a male-centric instrument around and making it fully her own; but I also found her songwriting a bit lacking, which could make the sharp electric sheen of her delivery occasionally sound a little too flashy (in fact, if you can pull off that guitar sound, why bother writing songs at all, when you could go all Göttsching on your axe? - which is no complaint on Calvi's voice though, echoing that same appealing blend of allure and defiance).
I suppose it makes sense then that a collection of hand-picked covers could be just the thing to balance that out, and that's exactly what Strange Weather did, delivering style and substance in spades (though, strangely, no writing credits on the booklet), even more so when shining a light on lesser known material and artists (Connan Mockasin [sic] anyone?). The only instance where you perceive the threat that this could have been just another one of those underwhelming, 'I'll never listen to this again', covers records that only make you miss the originals, is precisely the least surprising one, when she does Bowie's "Lady Grinning Soul".
The title track in particular (apparently suggested by David Byrne, whose chiming in actually resulted in one of the rare instances of a vocal duo recording making dramatic sense, giving it a couple at a crossroads feel), by completely unknown to me Keren Ann, takes the cake though. It's an almost paradoxically moving post-romantic take on relationships ("I've loved before, I'll love again") that manages to marry the heartfelt sincerity of the feelings involved ("I know that yours was true") with the emotional accountancy that can make it or break it ("you want to think it through"), manifesting love and loss less as an expression of amorous destiny than as the risky net result of investing, through a series of involved projections and calculations, on a sentimental futures market, where going emotionally broke can still sting no less than losing all your savings (thereby implicitly underlining why it's so often tucked away under mattresses that you may find the "hidden dreams the broken hearted keep").
Twelve years later (twelve?! what have I done with my life?? - sorry, just a reflex) this is still my favourite release of hers - until she decides to go for her "inventions for electric guitar" that is. Think it through.
