Animal Poem by Anna Tivel

Recorded live in a circle with some of my dearest friends, Animal Poem was made in conversation. We wanted to be together in the room, to listen and respond in real time without the separation of walls and headphones. I met Sam Weber the summer before and resonated deeply with his musicality and his reasons. We sat around on porches swapping tunes and I asked if he would help me make something that felt as unadorned and free. He donned hats seamlessly – co-producer, engineer, musician – setting mics and checking levels before returning to curl around his guitar and disappear into each song. Everyone in the studio made it feel so open, made it easy to forget technology and permanence and just play, messy and alive. It’s this vital mess that moves me when I listen now – ghost notes in the high register of the piano, melodic guitar and bass lines briefly interwoven, earthy cymbals breathing, my dog barking. We came back to add saxophone, strings, vocal harmonies, and a few other tastes, but most of what you hear is just people sitting together in a small room, listening and talking with tenderness and abandon.


The songs were written on long drives across the country, airplanes, walks through my neighborhood, nights spent lying on the roof. Every album is a snapshot, a momentary study of the way a mind reaches for understanding. I can feel myself reaching in these songs, for whatever is right beyond my grasp. Mortality and connection. Suffering and meaning. People lead the narratives, come into orbit, spin away again – an exhausted mother at a freeway exit, an aging neighbor surrounded by a growing pile of newspapers, the unsung heroes of a midwest uprising, two lovers looking at the sky.

Anna Tivel's 7th studio album, "Animal Poem" out August 29th on Fluff and Gravy Records

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