• News

• All

Apr 24, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Kale Chesney

Next month, Oregon-based singer/songwriter Anna Tivel is set to return with her sixth full-length album, Living Thing. The record follows her 2022 album, Outsiders, and her accompanying stripped-back live acoustic album, Outsiders (Live In a Living Room), released last year. Living Thing was first written in 2020 and was recorded in Eau Claire, WI alongside Tivel’s collaborator and producer Shane Leonard.

As she explains, “I wrote feverishly in the strange chaos of that year, suddenly out of work and attempting to understand the shifting human fabric, the depth of desperation and the overwhelming tenacity of spirit. The resulting songs felt rhythmic and vital, with more melody and soaring chorus than I’ve explored in the past. There was no way and no means to gather a full band, and I brought the songs to Shane’s doorstep knowing and fully trusting the skill and exuberance of his creative imagination. Shane stripped everything down to the studs and we rebuilt it together, just the two of us for a month in his garage studio, Shane dreaming up each sonic layer while I chased the lyrics to one last double chorus.”

Tivel has already shared “Disposable Camera” and “Bluebird” from the album, and today she’s back with another new track, “Desperation,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“Desperation” finds Tivel dwelling on the toll that pain and injustice take on a person, exploring the frustration and bitterness of playing against life’s stacked deck. She confesses “Real life is far from fair, you tried and tried and got nowhere / It’s like somebody rigged the whole damn thing / Bloody knuckles, empty hands, you want to fight, but all you ever had / Is desperation.” Despite, the tense fury burning beneath the lyrics, Tivel’s performance brims with warmth and organic intimacy, and her vocals recall the airy beauty of Adrianne Lenker. Similarly, the track’s tense and understated instrumentation begins to loosen with the chorus, allowing Tivel’s vocals to sprawl and soar atop the winding guitar lines and sharp pop melody.

Tivel says of the track, “Future vision is forever married to imagination. This is a song about being born into a harsh reality, about struggling to imagine something better than you’ve seen. Poverty, inequality, disenfranchisement – all these dark systems that devalue human capacity, crush human spirit and soul. To be born in that darkness, to see it mirrored all around you in the lives of everyone you love, is to read an unjust story about yourself that takes herculean strength to change”

Check out the song below. Living Things is due out on May 31st via Fluff & Gravy Records.