Ana Silvera's Blog

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2008-03-16T04:31:00.000-07:00

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2008-01-27T04:11:00.000-08:00

Like the echo of a voice remembered

2007-11-26T06:05:00.000-08:00

Hello! Its been a little while, hasn't it? Since I arrived back on soil this side of the Atlantic (that's the UK, innit!) various exciting stuff has been happening.
Namely, with the kind investment of an appreciator of my music (phew...that was a mouthful, but better sounding than the kind of flimsy 'fan'), I shall be recording and filming a session at the excellent Dean Street Music Studios, Soho (see www.deanst.com), in early December. This will be filmed by the talented filmmaker - hailing from Barcelona, but now UK based - Guillermo Ibanez. Audio will be in the more than capable hands of Tony Platt, who did an top job engineering and producing my CD, 'Live at West Road'; Ian Wedgewood at Mind Studios who did an incomparable job on my recent lot of press shots will be shooting live stills of me and the ever genius Jon Cottle will be ripping it up on the cello!
I will also be recording an exclusive podcast for the Liberal magazine www.theliberal.co.uk and so far the track listing looks like this:

Nadezhda
Salome
Home Town
All the King's Horses
Romeo
Notes from an Opera
Ne Me Quite Pas
Gardenias
All I Know Is
Painted Horizon
If

Any others you think I absolutely must perform, do email and let me know (ana@anasilvera.com) - I would really love to hear from you!

This recording will be used for promotion, but also as a kind of prototype for my forthcoming (and first ever) studio album, which will go into production in 2008. I am already gathering a brilliant lot of musos for the recording, including bassist with Antony and the Johnsons, Jeff Langston as well as Anja McCloskey, an accordionist of great talent, and, it goes without saying, Jon Cottle.

My musical cause has also been taken up by excellent music management company, Jackdaw Media. If you want to know anything about press or bookings, contact my agent Hannah via myspace.com/jackdawmedia.
Also, new tracks from the Ibiza sessions - If, Freight Train, and Painted Horizon - plus new versions of All the King's Horses and Home Town are now up on myspace.com/anasilvera

Planning for a studio album got me musing about which songs to include, and moreover the song-writing itself. I was interested to read recently, that Joanna Newsom said that she rarely listened to music when she first started writing. Similarly, I really don't listen to much music either except for Classical. In fact, inspiration (almost) always starts with words, maybe a sentence or phrase that evoke an entire world which I can then mentally navigate to create the story that needs recounting.
A friend of mine asked whether my song, "Notes from an Opera" was based on a movie or a novel as it has a disjointed, and in his words 'epic' quality to it. But that wasn't the case. (Lyrics for "Notes..." can be read here)

In fact, it began with a jumble of impressions that seemed to have made a kind of tenuous connection in my mind; principally inspired by and crystallized within two poets' response to the aftermath of the world wars of the last century.
TS Eliot's 'The Wasteland'(1922) written famously as a requiem for the dead and the damaged of the First World War formed the basis of this song. One of the first narrative voices to enter the fray remarks:

Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten

which is later abruptly interrupted by another voice, flatter and more sullen, somehow:

I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter

It was the latter voice who prompted me to begin the song, a spoilt and slightly petulant young woman - a starlet? - deliberately ignorant and oblivious to the war, and only interested in reaping its benefits through the indulgences of the soldiers.

I took up with an officer - and then his general
He bought me almond biscuits and a freshwater pearl
He took me to the Opera and after to Pigalle
A dancer wearing tassels ate the rose off my lapel

which later and quite abruptly shifts in tone (and musical mode) to another or perhaps the same women, but changed by experience and loss:

On the Rue des Abesses/We could see violets/Had colonised the Boulevard in June
I walked him down to the station/Banners fly from the irons -/And vapour trails
Come rising up/ Like dove's tails/ Bridal veils...

A second, recently discovered poem inspired the next part of the song. Little known in this country, French poet Pierre Seghers worked as a resistance fighter during WW2. His work, "Piranesi"(1960, published by Forest Books, and beautifully translated by Ian Higgins), is clearly marked by his experience of the Occupation, and later the post-war testimonies that emerged from the Nazi concentration camps. It is really one of the most beautiful works I have discovered in the last few years, and it was one of the final stanzas of “Piranesi" that sparked off the lyrics for the final section of my song:

(From “Piranesi” Stanza 27)

I am writing in the time of plant-grown
ruins, the time of fig-tree and ivy among saffron slabs,
with the fallen columns lying, snapped and scattered, in the
mud.
And through the broken-open temple roof, what does the
sun light up?[...]
widths of night fall in like walls[...]
But like the echo of a voice remembered,
thre is a sound.
Just listen: time passing.

Taking a Bite of the Apple

2007-10-03T11:33:00.000-07:00

Well let me tell ya...what a city! Perhaps you already know. I arrived at JFK airport, NYC on Friday night, unfortunately with a very gammy leg. In the previous 48 hours I had been referred to as Limper, Hoppy, Hop-a-long Cassidy, and Jake the Peg (which if you think about it makes no sense, as he had an extra leg). And that was just my friends! I headed straight to Hudson Press to buy extra strength Advil in a bid to my ease my hobbling, and sorted out a shuttle bus which drops you to your door. Except 'WHERE you going?!!!' the lady at the desk said. 'Err...142nd Street.' She gave me a look to imply that she would rather contract cat AIDS than ask the driver to head up there. Sure, I knew it was Harlem but I didn't expect that reaction. And anyway, I had been told that NYC was pretty much in the grip of London-style gentrification. Eventually she sorted me out, and off we shuttled, me still pathetically teary and limpy though better for the Advil. The thing is, I had no idea where I was going to be staying except somewhere in Harlem with a friend of a friend called Gretchen. After an hours drive, we arrived to a lot of 'projects' or housing estates. They looked sort of daunting in the dark and the driver refused to leave until I got into the block. But once up on the 11th floor, I was reassured to meet Gretchen, a lovely woman who immediately put me at my ease. To offer your sofa bed for 10 nights to a total stranger when you live in a one bed apartment is just super generous of her and I felt very much at home.
So that was my intro. The next day I picked up a coffee at the Deli and headed to Michiko Studios just off Time Square to knuckle down to some serious practice. My friend Nick from the Kaiser Chiefs was in town, so we had a little jam at Michiko's (he came up with some nice jazzy chords) and I saw them play a great gig at Beacon Theatre to a very appreciative audience.
Back to Harlem. Its always strange being a foreigner in a new town, as you just don't know which bits of what you are seeing is commonplace, and which is even out of the ordinary for the local folk. For instance, as I walked back to Gretchen's from 135th Street last night, I heard this cinematic music blaring out, and a rather hammy recording of a man's voice. I looked across the road to see a little van covered in cloth upon which had been written 'Sukkah', in amateurish ink. Some Orthodox Jews had created a mobile 'Sukkah' (in the Jewish festival of Sukkot - which celebrates the harvest - it is a tradition to build a Sukkah in your back garden which is a kind of wooden house covered in vegetables and fruit, which everyone sleeps under). They had opened the back of the van which was full of fresh produce and a cinema screen hooked to the back which had some kind of informative film about the festival. They seemed very good humoured, as local kids (mainly African-American and Latin American) crowded round to see what was going on. The modernity of the van and the kookiness of the concept seemed strangely incongruous with the sombre and archaic look of the Jews (black suits, black hats) and it was all the more touching to see also a community which is typically insular (at least in London as I can make out), somewhere in Harlem hosting a kind of Semitic Film Club! It made me wonder if there is an easier co-existence between traditional religions (as opposed to obviously commercial 'Born Again' style churches) and mainstream, commercial culture here. Another tiny example is when I dropped into the stunning Catholic church on 46th Street - St Mary the Virgin. The first sign you see as you come in reads 'Sinners Repent'. Except it doesn't, and upon re-reading it, you realise it says 'Sinners Repaint'. Its a plea for contributions towards the church's re-decoration. Its a kind of Catholic Saatchi campaign - nice wordplay!
And in London, I have never seen Orthodox Jews selling 'Lulav' in, say, Leicester Square - perhaps an equivalent of Times Square (Lulav is a binding of date palm frond, myrtle tree, willow branch and citron traditional for Sukkot) as they do here.
Last night, I went for a rehearsal in Nyack with Jeff Langston who is, among other things, the bassist with Antony and the Johnsons. He lives in a beautiful little Cape Cod style house, with an upright Yamaha piano for me. We soon got stuck into rehearsing for Friday night where I will be playing with him at Rockwood in Greenwich Village area. He is a consummate, sensitive and fantastic musician who immediately 'got' my stuff. I am really looking forward to the gig, though I need to sort out a way to record it so you lot can have a listen, and also need some pics of the gig and also generally of NYC as I'd like to post them. Lots of contacts to meet in the next few days, but in typical Ana style I have lost my mobile. I have a memory only second to a chronic amnesiac, not a week goes by that I don't lose a wallet, a travel card, a bag, item of clothing or mobile. Oh well.
The leg is a lot better, in no small part due to my amazing Bowen therapist who has saved my skin on more than a couple of occassions. If you have anything muscle/bone related wrong with you, I'd urge you to make Isobel Knight, based in London, one of your first ports of call www.bowenworks.org
I'll keep you all updated on the NY progress!

Except the One She Sang and Singing Made

2007-08-17T08:43:00.000-07:00

The results of the photoshoot are available for view (though I am not sure how long for) at www.mindstudio.co.uk/ana/index.html taken by the brilliant Ian Wedgewood. I would recommend him without a doubt to anyone! There are various exciting things afoot. The Pizza on the Park gig was a real blessing and generator of good things; not least I made acquaintance with Mr Benjamin Ramm, editor (and founder - or perhaps revivalist if you count its original incarnation as a mag set up by Percy Shelley in 1821) of the Liberal magazine www.theliberal.co.uk
We bonded over a favourite Wallace Stevens poem of mine via ...uh...Facebook!
'And we, as we beheld her striding there alone
Knew that there never was a world for her
Except the one she sang and singing made'.
(The Idea of Order at Keywest)

Its a magazine with a staggeringly high calibre of contributors - in fact it reads like a who's who of the best literary and political commentators of today - everyone from Julia Kristeva, Germaine Greer to Harold Bloom and Peter Tatchell.

Actually, Ben has created a forum for me - if you login to your Facebook profile and then follow this link, you'll be there!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2545766393

The idea of this forum (though at the moment it looks like a fan club, ha ha!) is to bring those people who enjoy my music into my own process and creation, more of which later (you'll have to sign up!).

A couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of playing at an poetry evening hosted by The Liberal magazine at Keats House, Hampstead (the former dwelling place of Keats, no less).
The poets and the audience were charming and lovely, and I felt very much at home.
Ben has requested I record a podcast for the magazine which will be engineered at Pizza on the Park and we have many other highly exciting plans in the offing...I'll keep you posted of course.

The other plan I have has become crystallized in the last couple of weeks: to record a studio album. Again, that's all under wraps and again, more of which later!

I am also off to New York at the end of September to play a couple of gigs in Brooklyn. It will be my first trip stateside, so if you have any advice/recommendations/friends to offer me I would be most grateful (via email) ana@anasilvera.com

I have finally updated my website (which is in the process of being majorly rejigged) www.anasilvera.com and uploaded the track 'Gardenias and Cigarettes'.

This was a bit of a functional blog, not much time to muse, but I wanted to keep you all updated - I am very excited about everything! Not much time to write at the minute, but I feel like I haven't stopped writing songs for the last year so its ok to focus on getting 'out there' - wherever that might be!
Much love x

Pinturas

2007-07-07T03:25:00.000-07:00

It was a very rainy Saturday that myself and Krisana Mariza set off in a Defoe Cab to Soma Studios, No.1 Sly Street, Somewhere in Hackney. The night before we sank a rather oversweet bottle of red wine and attempted to put outfits together in preparation for the impending shoot. The problem was we were both utterly exhausted and slightly hysterical (in a good way) and for some reason we had also thought that sequins were the way to go when we had gone out clothes shopping. (This reminds me of when me and my most longstanding childhood friend Anna Goodall decided to form some kind of ironic du-woop group called "The Sequin Girls" back in the day. Sort of like the Golden Girls but more musical). Krisana kept taking deeply unflattering shots of me with her mobile and laughing her head off. I admit we both cracked up when we tried the 'Clown' look - improvised ruff and puffy sleeves. "Draw black tears on me!" I cried, before collapsing with exhaustion. A sad clown indeed.
The next morning, after sleeping like stones, we arrived at Soma Studios. Photographer Ian Wedgewood (www.mindstudios.co.uk - highly recommended!), Krisana and I unloaded all the clothes and camera gear from the car in the torrential rain, and then went for a greasy fry up and sweet tea. I resisted the lure of a bacon roll ( I have a soft spot for pigs, and maybe its also the lingering influence of my mum's not altogether dedicated attempts to bring us up Jewish, but there was never a pork roast to be found in our house. There was salami...but...you know, salami doesn't count, being not remotely pig-shaped).
Soon after 21 year old hair and make-up twins Danielle and Nicole arrived (fairly identical, I had to make a mental note - Danielle is wearing purple, Nicole is wearing green etc), with a trunkload of makeup in tow. They insist on working together - Danielle does make-up, and Nicole does hair - and they do work fantastically together. They got stuck in to me with the Elnett and rollers and lots of MAC. Meanwhile, Ian was setting up on the 2nd floor of the studios - it reminded me of a couple of squats I frequented as a teen...lots of brick and dangerously exposed looking wires, bed frames and cotton spools and various unidentified objects of an industrial nature.
Photo shoots are funny things. Its a balance to strike between posing and looking natural, obviously. But I had a clear sense of what I wanted from this shoot. I have always loved the musical styles of French chanson and the visuals of cabaret - and increasingly my music tends towards a more story-telling style, rather than a personal, confessional style. So it made sense to present more of a theatrical self rather than trying to be naturalistic about it. The twins totally got this, painting me a beauty spot, eye make up that gave me almost oriental eyes, and at one point sort of Kabuki style lips. Krisana with her excellent artist's eye was on hand to tweak, poke, clip and style me, and after various changes of clothes and makeup, it was a wrap. I have uploaded some pics on my myspace and facebook pages - once I work out if I can do this on this blog I will put some more up.

I am going to spend today cramming for my Pizza on the Park gig, happening on the 12th July. This usually involves me trying to play the piano whilst not looking at the keys. Hm.

Then there is the Marlborough Jazz Festival on the 14th of July, where I have been nominated for best newcomer. Hurrah.

Finally, a note. I am the acting chair of the Soteria Network(www.soterianetwork.org), and we have a meeting which I am part chairing on Thursday the 19th July. If you are interested in any of the issues surrounding the foundation of this network, it would be brilliant to see you there!

There's no business like...

2007-06-23T03:18:00.000-07:00

A funny part of music-ing which isn't exactly unreconcilable with the composing, but definitely a very different dimension are the bits like performing (crucial) photo-shoots(kind of fun depending on who is shooting) and 'networking'(a mostly necessary evil). The composer-side of me likes being holed-up, unbeholden, uninterrupted and not time-bound in any way; then there is this other part of getting up on stage and presenting a 'personal' process (although my songs are becoming increasingly less personal in relation to me, because singing about yourself gets boring after a short while!) to strangers and friends alike.

Sometimes it feels very natural - as if there isn't any differentiation energetically between myself, the music, and those in the audience - its a blissful feeling of forgetfulness, that space in which the music was composed (without thought of time, or attainment) is transferred to the space of performance. But it can be otherwise.
One dear friend of mine in Ibiza, Chris, has lived in the mountains near S.Mateu since arriving on a boat in the late 1950's - the height of the Beat movement, and there were plenty of genuine freaks who made their home on that then practically medieval island.
He is a phenomenal flautist but to my knowledge he has never performed in his life. He dubs it 'pre-formance' i.e. something pre-meditated, lacking vitality and spontanaeity. I don't entirely agree with him, but I do see what he's getting at; its the monkey in the circus vibe that can come on suddenly. If I perform for approval, I've discovered, I am lost. I can only perform in a way that pleases myself, that I measure what I do with regard to my own expectations. Its easier said than done, but there's nowhere else to go.

On another note, I am pretty excited about a forthcoming photoshoot next Saturday.
I've met with the photographer to discuss concepts (me in a raincoat, me in a giant jam jar, me and an inflatable sheep). We've got a venue lined up in Hackney, all I need to do is...go shopping.

Now where can you buy inflatable sheep?!!!

A Piece of Cake

2007-06-08T06:13:00.000-07:00

Currently in the Eco Cafe in S.Juan, Ibiza, drinking my first cortado of the day. This is going to be a short one seeing as the space bar on this reclaimed Apple is getting consistently stuck! However, I am pleased to report that the recording session was a success. 7 hours solid recording, left to my own devices with an amazing piano, a basic digital machine and a fantastic mic left me with 6 complete songs - Salome, All the King's Horses, Painted Horizon, Freight Train, If, Notes on an Opera - and 2 sketches of as yet incomplete songs. The versions are not flawless - especially new and more complex ones such as "Notes on an Opera", but I think the essence has been captured. I will. of course, make some available for download in the coming weeks.
These recordings will also allow me to get some ideas together for string parts, which Jon Cottle (my master cellist) will no doubt substantially improve upon.

Sitting on the beach yesterday, I starting chatting to a Spanish acquaintance to whom I had given some tracks to. He said, although he hadn't properly listened to the CD, his first impressions from hearing Salome were that (and it was hard to completely catch the sense of it, because his English isnt perfect) somehow the music was too fixed around a poetic idea, that my music should have more movement, or perhaps playfulness. Now, its always hard to hear criticism of ones own music, and this comes to something that I have struggled with for a long time. To what extent should one take on board the criticism of others? Of course, if I took on board everyone's criticism, it would no longer be my music, it would become riven with the opinions of other, it would no longer be an authentic reflection of what I want to hear and to create. Should I not take any criticism on board? But certain pieces of criticism that have recurred, I have assimilated to the improvement of my music - it can force one out of a rut, arrogance, repitition. Therefore, who should I be listening to in terms of this?At what point is it enough to say "I disagree with you, I stand by this, this is what I intend"?

I was talking to a friend of mine called Brian who does the cooking for the yoga centre in Benirass (google Ibiza Yoga), and by all accounts is great at it; dahls, raitas, shepherds pie, apricot and mango relish are some of his specialities. When we discussed it, he made an analogy with his own creations. "If someone told me to put more salt in my cooking, or that I should start making nouvelle cusine or whatever, I'd tell them to fuck off', as they would thereforehave completely missed the point of what he is trying to achieve.

No conclusions here...any comments welcome!

Piedra del Sol

2007-05-29T12:07:00.003-07:00

Today I finally got the green light to record in Ibiza next week. In typical chaotic Ibizan style, this was only confirmed at the last minute, but it will be the fulfillment of at least a two year ambition. An painter friend called Robert who lives in the South of the island somehow got a Steinway piano - all 9 foot of it - shipped over from the Continent a little while ago. It now resides in his artist's studio high on a hill looking over the little village of San Jose. Robert uses this piano for his own pleasure, but he also offers it - along with the option of recording - to local and international artists, including the world renowned avant garde jazzer, Joachim Kuehn (see www.joachimkuehn.com). Joachim is a local character and a formidable player, who has worked with everyone from Eartha Kitt and Billy Cobham to Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. My friend Klaus who leaves in a tumbledown house near to Benirass in the North recalls first setting eyes on Joachim supporting, of all people, Jimi Hendrix in the 60's, and was later delighted to meet him in person on the island that they both now call home.
I am frantically finishing incomplete songs for recording out there. I am very excited to be recording on the island; its been my home from home for a good seven years, and has been the source of a great deal of the meditative spaces in between which allow me to really write. "Notes from an Opera" will be one such song, along with a new one called 'Freight Train' plus another clutch that are so green they don't even have titles.
Its a funny thing, songs that don't automatically complete themselves. I used to presume that if a song didn't simply wrap itself up, as sometimes occurs in the process, then it was a bit of a lame duck. More often than not that is the case. The words don't cohere, don't suggest a natural conclusion to the story, and it all feels a bit soggy and disjointed. However, two stories remind me that this isn't always the case and have inspired me to keep going if I have an inkling that the song may just been worth de-fibrillating (!).
Probably the first song I learnt to sing 'proper' was 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell. It was one of the tunes in the Russ Shipton Guitar Songbook that my dad owned. Its an incredibly beautiful song which Joni Mitchell has recorded twice, once as a young woman and then much later singing in what has been described as her 'tobacco-ravaged' voice . She is quoted as saying "I thought 'Both Sides Now' was a failure, so what do I know?". Quite! I also recall the story of EY Harburg, who agonised for weeks over the lyrics of 'Over the Rainbow', one of the finest standards (as it has become now), ever written.
So sometimes, patience is a virtue.

It Hurts!

2007-05-25T05:02:00.001-07:00

No, I don't mean that in a deep existential singer-songwriter type way! I mean my bloody right hand. "Notes on an Opera" has taken a Debussy-an turn (I'm sure there is a proper adjective for Monsieur Achille-Claude D somewhere that escapes me...) and is involving muscles that I didn't before suspect of existing!
Actually, talking of ontological angst in the vein of a lot of troubadours, I have been pondering the whole sentimentality thing. The cliches. The 'I love you and I'll never let you go', 'For all time' etc and then inevitably references (culled from U.S. speak) about driving in the rain on a highway and the hands of time and all that business. I may be shooting myself in the foot here (never again will I be permitted to refer to 'rain' or moving vehicles in a song without being accused of monumental hypocrisy) but I find it all thoroughly depressing. Why do people want to fall back into the comfort of lyrical knowns? Such cliches give experience an immediately identifiable container - the one who hears the song can both identify himself with the stereotype/archetype of the rejected and pining lover, the bowled over lover - as well as knowing that this sentiment is being shared en masse and moreover that it is an socially accepted sentiment; thus, through cliches we align ourselves with particular ways and concepts of, in this case, loving. It seems to me to be a terrible de-limitation of narrative perspectives.

Is not the uniqueness and strangeness of individual experience (both for the artist, and the listener) to be desired? And is not the broadening out, the diversifying of understanding for others (hugely various) experiences something to be wished for from 'art'?

I guess thats the impetus for me, for writing songs such as 'Home Town' (currently on myspace, kids!). Its about a man (I think) lying at the bottom of the Thames looking up. It seems, at face value, that that would be a very sad thing indeed. Death, the final departure..but the inspiration came from an Elizabeth Bishop poem, 'Love Lies Sleeping':

[...]morning comes
whose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,
whose face is turned
so that the image of

the city grows down into his open eyes
inverted and distorted. No. I mean
distorted and revealed,
if he sees it at all.

Death could be the beginning, a liberation from form and suffering. I know I hardly got there first with that concept (buddha and, well, most religions provided you've been good) but it seems to me that the usual and automatic response to suicide is sadness for the one who felt the need to take his/her own life. That's one narrative perspective. My song is spoken post-humously and our man in the Thames says:

'My eyes are food for fishes
Served on sea dishes
For doves and for gulls

Won't somebody bear witness
Someone bear witness
That I'm smiling now...?'

At the beginning of the last century, Bergson wrote about the intellect dealing with 'extensive manifolds' responsible for systematizations of knowledge needed for the practical ordering of our lives. But, he noted, the intellect distorts reality - freezes it into abstract patterns of life - breaks it up into discreet data - and so falsifies the essentially dynamic and changing thing that is reality; that is, the intellect is incapable of dealing with an 'intensive manifold'. For this, he said, we require the more subtle instrument of art.

It seems to me that sentimentality is a product of the 'extensive manifold' - its a presumed, automatic, un-present and mechanical response to a certain set of cirumstances; its an adopted narrative, not a narrative of a person's own unique making. The price of a sense of universality, communality and collective experience is the nullifying of deeper and individual perception.

Somewhere in Paris

2007-05-22T12:20:00.000-07:00

Today I am working on a song, tentatively entitled "Notes on an Opera". What started it? A picture I have had in my head, some kind of starlet shored up in a hotel somewhere in Montmatre, mid-war. Powder. Shalimar. Almond biscuits. The Pigalle. A dancer eating roses off lapels.
This lady is smart enough to ingratiate herself with an officer. Off he goes, as soldiers do, leaving her holed up in in city...

A sundial creeps its hours
Into July
Among the ruins
Lanternas light
I still count his steps on the esplanade
Like rosaries...