Twyla Tharpe get a new soundtrack to dance to in the video for Anna Tivel’s ‘The Dial’. Gritty programmed percussion joins warbling rootsy guitars as Tivel sings about her experiences on the road after a long tour. This is the third single from Tivel’s new album, ‘Outsiders’, which is available now. The footage of Tharpe and her dancers is from the legendary choreographer’s 1974 presentation of ‘Sue’s Leg’ and somehow synchronizes with the new song perfectly.
On the inspiration for the track Tivel explains, “I wrote ‘The Dial’ on the back of a gas receipt on a long drive from Utah to Colorado. A car in front of me threw some trash out the window and when I got closer it turned out one of the items was a little dreamcatcher. I was at the tail end of a long tour, just feeling kind of raw and doubtful and it made me feel like throwing up my hands and laughing. Driving all over the place playing songs about my feelings for strangers is serious business to me, a deep devotion and a privilege. And it’s also sometimes totally nuts, like some hilarious simulation where you keep finding yourself peeing through a funnel drilled in the floor of a shitty van outside the place where you just poured your heart out in front of three drunk people who kept asking the bartender to turn the tv back on. I’m glad both things exist, the expansive and the humbling, and I’ll never toss my dreamcatcher.”
From her home-base in Portland Oregon, Tivel is currently touring throughout the U.S., Canada, and Europe with new headlining U.S. fall dates recently announced.
