In Conversation With #164 - Anna Vincent
After two decades making music, Anna Vincent has shared her debut solo album, Under The Glass, released on new label Ultimate Blends, run by Max Bloom of Yuck. Coming together last year after her touring life with Happyness and Heavy Heart came to a standstill, Anna dug out some previous lyrics and Under The Glass quickly came to fruition, despite no initial plans to write and release an album. Inspired by late 60s and early 70s folk and folk-rock - Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - alongside Wilco, Elliott Smith and Teenage Fanclub, the album is a delicate and intimate collection of songs.
She took a moment to talk to us about how the album came together.
Hey there Anna, how are you? So your debut album is out now - how does it feel to have it out there in the world?
Hello! I’m really well, thank you, and really happy that my album is out, it feels like it’s been a long time coming, but the last few weeks have suddenly gone really quickly so I’m reeling a bit that it’s already here. It’s funny with releasing music; the gestation period is super slow and drawn out, and with this record especially I really took my time and didn’t set any kind of deadline. You live with these songs for so long, just you and them, and you start feeling happy that way, and then the releasing bit feels kind of brutal, throwing them out into the cold wide world. But at the same time, I always feel they’re not fully alive until someone else hears them.
It is titled ‘Under The Glass’ - does that have a certain meaning behind it?
It does! As soon as I wrote those lyrics I knew it would be the title of the album. They come from the final track, and the idea is kind of central to the themes on the album, which is a lot to do with love and beauty, but also about the passing of time, about growing older, but somehow still not quite growing up. In the song, the lyric says, “Time’s a butterfly everybody wants to pin down”, and I was thinking of the way the Victorians used to catch butterflies and pin them under glass. It was something about preserving their beauty forever, but also maybe about trying to assert control over nature, which is ultimately futile. When I write a song, that’s my attempt to capture a fleeting moment or thought and pin it down for other people to experience too, so in that way I feel like the one with the net, and these nine songs are all different coloured butterflies. We actually carried that idea into the artwork for the singles and the back of the album cover too.
Where was it recorded? Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process you are happy to share with us?
It was produced by Max Bloom, and almost entirely recorded at our home here in Clapton in east London throughout 2020 and a bit of 2021 (with drums recorded remotely by Adam Gammage and some lovely violins recorded by Robbie Stern). I’ve always been in bands - most recently Heavy Heart and Happyness - so being a solo artist had never really occurred to me. However, when then pandemic hit and everything got cancelled, I started playing around with some ideas on my own, and those were the beginnings of ‘Under the Glass’. The songs were really just a way to keep myself sane in that weird year, and I’d initially had no intention of showing them to anyone, much less of making an album, but eventually Max persuaded me that we should record them properly. I’ve made a few albums with different bands and projects, but this was definitely the most enjoyable process creatively. There were no rules, and I was really just making the music I wanted to hear, so it kind of set me free from the usual concerns about where they might fit into the world. Max is such an amazing musician and producer and he really encouraged and supported me in this project, and turned my scrappy demos into a real record which I feel very proud of.
What are the key themes and influences on the album?
Most of the lyrics on the album are based on fragments of poems which I’d written in the year or so leading up to making it. During 2019 Max and I started our relationship, so a lot of the songs are about love really. Which I know has the potential to be cheesy, but I don’t really care. These are the most honest and personal songs I’ve ever written, and it felt good to be able to write from the heart without feeling the need to make it vague or non-specific. At the time we were getting together, I just felt like I was in this daze, like I was walking around on some kind of drug, so I’d try and write down how I was feeling so I wouldn’t ever forget. One song, ‘Naxos’, is about the first holiday we took, and ‘Seeing Double’ is about the night we got drunk and first got together, and there are references to our little story throughout the album. It was nice to allow myself to write a happy song for once, as I’ve always tended towards melancholia. But there’s still a healthy dose of that too, and some of the other songs deal with my fear of time passing, of the inevitability of growing older, finding yourself making the same mistakes again and again, losing touch with people, and with yourself. In terms of influences, I was listening to a lot of late 60s and 70s folk and folk rock, so things like Joni Mitchell, Crosby Stills & Nash, and Nico, as well as more recent stuff like Wilco, Elliott Smith and Teenage Fanclub. I’m not sure if any of that comes across on the album, but it was definitely in the back of my mind.
Do you have a favorite lyric on the album? If so, which one and why?
The lyrics in the title track are some that I’m proudest of, because I was really able to say what I wanted to, and in quite a simple way. I had this idea about time not being linear, so that we are simultaneously at the beginning and end of our lives: “See us walking hand in hand, a ghost and a child”. But there are lots of bits I’m proud of across the album, so I might have to pick a few. In ‘A Window’, I wanted to write about the eternal struggle of being an artist, and the constant self-doubt and disappointment it can bring, and I came up with the line, “obviously the trick is not to try”, which sort of became my mantra when making this record. I probably have a tendency to overthink things, but my best ideas usually come when I’m just enjoying the moment and the process, and not taking it too seriously. I’m also really proud of the lyrics in ‘Seeing Double’ because I just wrote them as they happened, and every time I sing them, I’m back in that moment. It might have been the wine, but the first time Max and I kissed, I felt like I could suddenly see two of him; the person I knew, and this entirely new person too. So the next day I wrote down, “I’m seeing double but I know you’re the one”. And I was right. Even with a mild hangover.
Now the album is out there - what next for you?
I’m playing my first full-band solo show (if you can be solo and in a band) on 1st November at The Waiting Room in London which I’m really excited about, and then I’m not sure. I do have some more songs waiting in the wings, so I guess I might make another album. I want to take the same approach as with ‘Under the Glass’ though, so I’m not going to rush it; I just want to see what emerges. And if the world looks like it’s not going to end just yet, I really would love to play a few more shows around the place, and clock up a few miles between motorway service stations, like in the good old days!