Rating: NNNN
Over three full-length albums, Anna Calvi has been chasing a state of music nirvana. She’s passionately invested in the idea that if she stretches her guitar and voice beyond their limits, she’ll break through this worldly plane into some higher state where God notes preside. She’s so rock ’n’ roll in that sense: an artist who’ll die on stage in service to her music. She hasn’t played Toronto since 2011, but if you’ve been fortunate enough to see her perform live, you know what I mean. If RuPaul’s drag queens lip synch for their life, the gender-fluid Calvi is shredding for hers.
Calvi is queer, by the way. She recently commented in the Telegraph that she was surprised the media didn’t pick up on this earlier, since 2011’s Anna Calvi and 2013’s One Breath were essentially romantic odes to women. With this release, Calvi is publicly out and it lends Hunter a directness and boldness that her previous efforts may have contained musically but not always lyrically.
Hunter is about subverting the gender binary. The first three tracks function like a trilogy. In opener As A Man, Calvi sings about the spaces male bodies occupy and the limitations of not “walking and talking as a man.” Title track Hunter quickly flouts that – Calvi sings about dressing herself in flowers and leather to slink through the night air, seeking sexual pleasure and a kind of transient freedom. The anthemic Don’t Beat The Girl Out Of My Boy closes the loop in its defiant declaration and celebration of non-conforming identities.
Having set the stage, Calvi unleashes a vision of love and sex that slides along multiple spectrums, which include the dynamics of her music. She often oscillates between the lower register of her voice and her piercing falsetto to wild effect. She equally pairs the low end of her Telecaster with big, reverberating drums that lend the album a powerful, sonic attack (fit for an album called Hunter) while still leaving well-placed moments to breathe with the beautifully airy tracks Swimming Pool and Away.
Twice nominated for Britain’s Mercury Prize, Calvi has consistently delivered brilliant albums. This new era of openness only serves to push her to more relevant and engaging levels.
Top track: Chain
chrisr@nowtoronto.com | @missrattan
