Here’s another beautiful song from Portland, Oregon-based singer-songwriter Anna Tivel. In ‘Fluorescence in the Future’, Tivel’s poetic words tumble out, almost spoken at first before finding a gorgeous, sweet melody in the chorus. The instrumentation is spare, the spaces between notes waiting to be filled, while halting percussion and unexpected pauses draw you in. Sometimes, notes linger and shimmer; sometimes, the melodic movement is more abrupt and unpredictable. Tivel’s writing is simply sublime.
The song appears on “Animal Poem”, Tivel’s brand new album, which is out now. Her seventh studio album of original songs is full of fine songcraft and lyrical poetry. She says of the record: “Every album is a snapshot, a momentary study of the way a mind reaches for understanding. I can feel myself reaching in these songs, for whatever is right beyond my grasp. Mortality and connection. Suffering and meaning. People lead the narratives, come into orbit, spin away again – an exhausted mother at a freeway exit, an aging neighbour surrounded by a growing pile of newspapers, the unsung heroes of a midwest uprising, two lovers looking at the sky. It’s hard to know how to hold a creative life in a time that feels fraught with venomous division, careening technological advance, and an ever widening chasm between the affluent and the dispossessed. What good are poems when affordable housing is scarce, the climate teeters on a dangerous edge, and war breaks out over misinformation spread by profit hungry algorithms? I think about being here. How brief it is. How incomplete our understanding. I think about history. All the worlds we’ve created and broken. Revolution and renaissance. Hope and humility. Everyone here is living a creative life – teachers and parents, kids and convenience store clerks. We’re all tasting this wild existence, finding ways to express how much it hurts and moves us. This work is my own small addition to that communal story. The water we swim in. The way our attention moulds our truths. Humanity is unfolding as we describe it. We’ll never get it right, but the attempt is everything.” Thought-provoking words from one of the most sensitive songwriters around right now. Immerse yourself in Anna Tivel’s gorgeous sound.
