Ana Silvera - The Fabulist (2022) [Hi-Res]

The first release since her much-lauded ‘Oracles’ live album (Guardian Critics’ Pick 2018; “a rare commitment to art” - CLASH), singer-songwriter Ana Silvera now releases studio album ‘The Fabulist’, produced with award-winning multi-instrumentalist Gerry Diver (BBC Folk Awards, Mercury Prize) and featuring stellar musicians including LA-based singer-songwriter Alan Hampton (Fiona Apple, Andrew Bird) and double bassist Jasper Høiby (Phronesis, Planet B).

Known for her lyrical, emotive alt-folk and bluegrass stylings, works of ‘lavish, vivid imagination’ (Metro), Ana has helmed a number of tours and collaborations over the past decade with notable British contemporaries including Imogen Heap, Olivia Chaney, Jim Moray, Bill Laurance (Snarky Puppy), Maya Youssef, Mara Carlyle, Max de Wardener and Aidan O’Rourke (LAU).

As a solo artist, she has drawn packed houses to top venues including Purcell Room, (South Bank Centre), Liverpool Philharmonic, Rockwood Music Hall (NYC), festivals Folk Alliance International, Iceland Airwaves and SXSW and composed commissions for Royal Ballet, Radio 3’s ‘Late Junction’ and Estonian Television Girls Choir.

The album title, meaning ‘teller of fables’, speaks to Ana’s love of story-telling, with the songs both drawing on the lives of “imagined others” as well as plumbing the depths of her own emotional experiences.

‘Ghosts’, for instance, describes Ana’s witnessing of her teenage brother’s descent into psychosis over the course of a sweltering London summer: “You were dumbstruck by the ghosts / who waltzed your body down the hall”; ‘Red Balloon’ describes the dizzying, disorienting pull of a forbidden yet magnetic attraction replete with off-kilter drums, soaring violins and the tender swells of Adrian Lever’s guitar pedals; and ‘Early Frost’, a duet with Alan Hampton, tells the story of a couple living a seemingly picture-perfect life – marriage, a house, a perfectly tended garden – but “like a hidden fault on an iced-up lake / it’s the smallest things that can make it break”.

Stylistically, Ana says, "Gerry and I wanted to root these songs in a folk sound-world – with instruments like acoustic guitar and fiddle as our primary palette - whilst bringing in contemporary elements such as mellotron, Wurlitzer and electric guitar. Production-wise we took inspiration from albums like Van Morrison’s ‘Astral Weeks’, Joni Mitchell's ‘Court and Spark’ and songs like Scott Walker’s ‘It’s Raining Today’, those rich, expansive arrangements with flutes, gossamer strings and instrumental interludes. It was a real joy working together to find a unique musical vocabulary for such a deeply personal collection of songs”.