Anna Burch – in session for Marc Riley – July 25, 2018 – BBC 6 Music –
Continuing our look at current artists this week; Detroit native Anna Burch, in session for Marc Riley, recorded only days ago on July 25th at BBC 6 Music.
Burch, formerly singer with Frontier Ruckus and, more recently fronting Failed Flowers before heading off on a solo career. This session marks a debut European tour, coinciding with the release of her debut album, Quit The Curse – an album that’s gotten a lot of good press since its release in February of this year.
Right now she’s in the midst of that tour, which should be taking her all over Europe, before heading back to the States in September to finish up what will be a pretty high energy romp.
Having taken a hiatus from music while attending school, Burch jumped back into performing and writing in 2014 at the urging of friends. It’s marked a pivotal turn for her and her writing has reflected that. Her music is characterized as being deceptively simple and upbeat, while hiding lyrics that toss light on destructive relationships and substance abuse. It’s all woven and held together with clear and engaging vocal harmonies which are certainly part of her charm.
As the bio on her Facebook page indicates:
“Writing songs that I actually liked for the first time gave me a feeling of accomplishment,” Burch said, “Like, I can do this too! But working with other musicians and hearing the songs go from sad singer/songwriter tunes to arranged pop songs gave me this giddy confidence that I’d never felt before.”
The process was drawn out and various drafts and recordings came and went as the months passed. By now Burch was playing low key shows and d.i.y. tours solo and had released some early versions of a few songs on a split with fellow Detroit musician Stef Chura. Even at a slow, meticulous pace, with every step the album took closer to completion, it felt more serious and more real. After a more than a year of piecemeal recording sessions, Burch was introduced to engineer Collin Dupuis (Lana Del Rey, Angel Olsen) who helped push things energetically home, mixing the already bright songs into a state of brilliant clarity.
If you aren’t already familiar with Anna Burch or have heard about her but not actually hearing her in live performance, check out this recent performance via Marc Riley at BBC 6 Music on July 25, 2018.
Might do a world of good.
