One listen to her world-weary yet somehow bouyant songs and it’s clear – Anna Tivel has spent her share of quality hours behind the wheel of a Dodge Caravan, repeating lines over and over until the words fall in time with the windshield wipers, or until the gas light comes on.
Heroes Waking Up, Anna Tivel’s third full-length album, was be released on May 20, 2016. It is the result of a year spent living and writing in a friend’s garage and on the road. The eleven song recording winds through a dusky darkness of hopeful strangers, shadowed struggle, quiet love, and flying dreams. Produced by guitar magician Austin Nevins (Josh Ritter, Anais Mitchell, The Mountain Goats), Tivel’s faded-photographic songwriting swells above a soundscape meticulously crafted by Nevins on guitar, lap steel, banjo, and pump organ. He is joined by Sam Howard (Ruth Moody) on bass, Ian Krist (Blind Pilot) on vibraphone, Robin Macmillan on percussion, and Jeffrey Martin and Moorea Masa singing harmonies. Throw in some violin and octave violin from Anna herself and the final effect is a sweeping, dream-like exploration of Tivel’s raw imagery and powerful storytelling.
Give a listen to the record here, and then buy it.
Here’s what some folks are saying about it:
“There is not a single song on here that is easily forgettable, much less filler”. – No Depression
“Anna Tivel writes songs that demand the full attention of the listener, and it isn’t hard to give her that because her singing and writing seem to take power over you” – Glide Magazine
“Heroes Waking Up” is a kind of consecration of artistic identity – Music Won’t Save You
“Each song on this album seems to simultaneously sing of sorrow and celebration. That even in the direst of circumstances, life is a still a beautiful thing. The most accurate connection that I could draw to this album is the writing of John Steinbeck.” – Northwest Music Scene
As Fernando’s 2015 release, Leave the Radio On, was coming together one thing was clear early on in the process. This was going to be a different record for the Argentine-born troubador, best known for his velvety voice and tex-mex, country-tinged rock and roll laments. The 5 years that had passed since 2010’s widely heralded True Instigator had been filled with health problems (a misdiagnosed hiatal hernia that nearly cost him his voice), causing Fernando to all but disappear from the public eye. Convinced to return to the studio by his friend Peter Buck, Leave The Radio On would mark a rebirth of sorts for Fernando, and he wanted the record to reflect that.
Here is what the media is saying:
Along with his partner in crime, Chuck Prophet, Dan Stuart led Green on Red to the forefront of the Americana movement from the early 80’s through mid 90’s, before Dan disappeared from the music business in 1995. In 2010 he fled to Mexico and began writing under the pseudonym “Marlowe Billings”. 2012 saw the release of a new record, The Disappearance of Marlowe Billings, to be followed by a false memoir of the same title. Both were explorations of the events that had led to his unraveling, his early days leading the erratically magnificent Green on Red and his later years as a kept man and occasional screenwriter who wandered the streets of NYC and Barcelona looking for opium dens that no longer existed and regrets that always will. The world took notice and he was back in the game but somehow all the rules had changed. Now, shunning his Americana roots, Stuart wanted retribution, songs that still had a taste of danger and intrigue, what use to be called rock ‘n’ roll. Recording alone in a concrete bunker in Oaxaca, with only the help of a banda engineer keeping time with a 30 peso little black egg shaker, Marlowe’s Revenge was born. He would later bring on Twin Tones (Mexico City) as his backing band, and the match couldn’t be more perfect.
