Anna Tivel is set to release her 4th LP, The Question, on April 19 and it promises to be her most groundbreaking effort to date. Produced by multi-instrumentalist, Shane Leonard, the 3 singles released thusfar have all pushed the boundaries of Tivel’s oeuvre in unexpected ways. The stark piano and swirling keyboards of “Fenceline” and the haunting synthesizer of “The Question” are surprisingly perfectly at home, considering that these are folks songs at heart, and the lush strings of “Minneapolis” are the perfect compliment to Anna’s vocal.
The latest single from the LP, “Worthless”, continues along this vein but takes it all one step further. The gritty, pulsating bass line is the perfect backdrop, creating a palpable tension that is so thick you can almost taste the smoke. Couple that with a bluesy off-kilter guitar and Mellotron solo and it’s easy to forget that this started as a folk song.
“This is a song about labels”, Tivel says, “about how difficult it is to shake a word, a name, a category heard over and over until it feels like it must be true. It’s about the power of the things we call each other.” Fittingly, this just may be the track, and certainly the album, that moves Anna Tivel beyond the reach of conventional labels and places her in the company of the great songwriters of her generation.
