Awaken, Believe, Rejoice
Some of the best moments about covering artists and creatives for FLUSH are the internal/external conversations you have to curate to fully grasp the tangible transformation after experiencing their creations.
Regardless of the process, tools, medium or nature of the work, it’s all ultimately storytelling, both the moment of the experience, and the struggle to write about it. Sometimes those stories are overt, carefully selected words on a page, spoken, or sung. Often they are visuals, cinematography, colours, actors, mimicking movements we’ve seen all our lives, but harnessed to pull our emotional strings.
But then there is music. An invisible alchemy where regardless of the object used, air is manipulated to instil an emotional response in the human body. Frequencies stir nervous systems evolved to read vibration long before language. It is a primal truth, and also somewhat magical.
It’s already well known that seeing an artist live for a myriad of reasons only heightens that magic. Grand or intimate, the spell can be equally effective. Especially when you truly open yourself to the moment, it can turn a leaden day into pure gold.
One such day was my first time seeing violinist, composer and producer Anna Phoebe live while supporting the equally divine Belle Chen during the EFG London Jazz Festival, reviewed here. A night where even though all was a truly euphoric delight to witness, even if you closed your eyes, you saw oceans, mountains, stars, galaxies, all woven together by violin strings forged in deep felt human stories. You didn’t need to see anything, to envisage the story. Yeah, it was somewhat epic to say the least.
Trying to harness such ethereal moments is nigh on impossible, but no doubt by utilising some form of contemporary runic spells and incantations Anna has managed to form an incredibly beautiful new album in the shape of DIVERGENCE. An anthology of diverse works that despite some having been conjured, often for specific live events, have been reaped and gathered like harvesting lightning, to be released into your soul.
Opening with the gentle, but ancient sounding notes of Minack, Anna summons deft skills, grace, gorgeous enveloping production and a phenomenal expansive sound that releases us from wherever we once believed anchored. Gravity is now a fable for mere mortals, as we roam the acoustic palaces of celestial gods.
I’m not going to go through each track, as that would be like telling you the entire plot to a film. Suffice to say the story is majestic, soaring, intimate, delicate, leviathan, humble and defiant. It never ceases to amaze me how this conducting of air seeps into your subconscious and floats up images of memories, moments, people and places, as we simultaneously journey with what is now a score to our own existence. Yes there are stories behind all the works, but we all bring our own responses and meanings to what is sweeping over us as we meander through the album and who we have become.
It may sound random to mention this, but it’s absolutely something I intuitively responded to in Anna’s works. The range of influence, subject, themes, emotions and tones. A genuine celebration and deep embrace of universal diversity, from all backgrounds, recognising the contribution from all degrees to make the complete serene human circle of life. It all makes sense having just learned of her moving to the UK from Germany when she was nearly five with her German mother and Greek/Irish father. Growing up in a land where she didn’t initially speak the language, it brings that heightened awareness of one’s surroundings that you hold onto forever, and only hone with age.
I say this from the recognition of being an Irish immigrant who has loved living in the UK for over a couple of decades, with one of the main reasons being the celebration of human diversity that walks and shares the streets of London. A selection box of treats that is being openly trodden upon on a daily basis by racist entities with a divisive agenda. Trying to create disharmony where naturally there is none.
There’s a unity to the sounds, drifting vocals, transient chants that pepper the album, sourced from all around the world and throughout time. No one actually owns anything, we all just get to experience it for a brief period of time.
As mentioned, the album is gorgeous, delicate and sumptuous, rich and elegantly Spartan with a profound sense of welcome therapy after laying down with it.
It’s that sense of healing that is tantalisingly welcome with the live DIVERGENCE event Anna will be holding on 15 January at The Lower Third in London, and subsequent events throughout April and May. Landing in grassroots venues across the UK to cast out stories and hypnotise audiences. As powerful as the album is, it’s the live events where the true entropy happens, where the energy and stories of sonic stars radiates out to all, to travel forever more.
Not a bad way to start 2026, with hope, unity and optimism. I’ll see you there.
DIVERGENCE by Anna Phoebe is out now, more information and UK tour details can be found here.