Strange Weather

This brief collection of covers by vocal powerhouse and guitarist Anna Calvi is made all the richer by her choice of songs, and by her partnering with David Byrne for two tracks. The first song, “Papi Pacify,” was originally by ethereal U.K. artist FKA Twigs; it’s as amorphous and mesmerizing as the original, with Calvi infusing her vocals with a bit more muscle. Her creeping, haunting, and not dissimilar take on singer Keren Ann’s piano-heavy “Strange Weather”—with Byrne’s wonderfully measured, restrained vocals—does justice to the deserving original, and her similarly unsettling version of “I’m the Man That Will Find You” is darkly sexy and far from the oddity of the Connan Mockasin original. David Bowie’s “Lady Grinning Soul” makes perfect sense for Calvi—she effortlessly reworks his dizzying waltz into an elegy, replacing the original’s grand sensibilities with introspective ones. Further evidencing her musical adventurism is the surprising take on early art-punkers Suicide’s “Ghost Rider,” where she spools out taut streams of guitar dissonance and semi-tortured vocal yelps that do the song right. Calvi is a real force.

Anna Calvi's new EP, which features five new covers, sounds like an extension of her debut single, 2010’s “Jezebel”. Calvi takes on songs by FKA twigs, Connan Mockasin, Suicide, and others; David Byrne guests.

Twickenham's most dramatic guitarist tackles a bevy of emotional numbers from other artists, adding her own signature twist and revealing new elements of the originals.

Last year, virtuoso guitarist and songwriter Anna Calvi released a great collection of original material titled One Breath…

A stop-gap release between 2013's One Breath and her third full-length studio album, 2014's more than servicable Strange Weather EP rounds up five covers, all of which are delivered with the usual impeccable taste and gothic flair that have become Calvi's trademarks since her debut in 2011.

Anna Calvi has defined herself as a singer-songwriter who trades in the markets of gloom and theatrics. With this EP, she has sought to apply her craft to the works of others. Released on Domino Records, Strange Weather is a concentrated display of interpretive and vocal talents, which sensitively takes on songs from Suicide to Bowie.

Anna Calvi shares her creative reinterpretations of others' music on this five-song covers EP, and in turn shows us another side of herself as a performer.