What’s My Scene: Anya Anastasia’s favourite collaborator is nature
In our regular Q&A column, InReview speaks to emerging and established local artists to get their take on the South Australian creative scene and their place within it. This week, Anya Anastasia reflects on how motherhood and “the wild parts of our world” have influenced her latest solo work.
Where was your first gig, and how did it go?
I grew up in an artistic performing family, so I’ve been on stage since I was very young. Early memory: I won the young traditionalist’s award at the Folk Festival in Victor Harbor playing my tin whistle at age seven (I blew my $50 winnings on a music stand, a new songbook, and $20 worth of mixed lollies.)
Fresh out of high school I frequented Billy Bob’s open mic at the Grace Emily, bravely fronting the rowdy crowds with my (then) brand of intimate, understated folk with acerbic lyrics. I quickly realised I needed humour in my set and a quick tongue to defend my otherwise gentle feminine stage-presence in blokey pub environments…
What is your artist origin story?
Bullied for being too weird and too smart, I didn’t exactly keep a low profile; finishing Dux of my school and dying my hair every imaginable colour, I decided to put my brains to good waste and ultimately joined the circus.
Finding ‘my people’ scattered across the world in tents and theatres, I wrote and performed in satirical theatrical stage shows, composing all the original music for the live band myself. My work took me to Edinburgh Fringe, Prague, London, and eventually New York Off Broadway by invitation for the ‘Pick of the Fringe’ curated programme at SoHo Playhouse showcasing the best Fringe shows from around the world.
By this time I was starting to find that the subtleties of my brand of satire was starting to get lost on crowds seeking more instant gratification in Fringe variety, and the music I was writing was increasingly compromised to serve dramatic and comedic plots.
(Let’s be honest, there’s only so much complexity you can weave into music when you’re playing your piano upside down, dressed as Marie Antoinette, feet in the air doing an elaborate foot dance, whilst removing your shoes and socks and embodying the many demands placed on women to be at once smart, sexy, entertaining, hard-working, scape-goated, and underpaid all at once!)
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Staging my show Off-Broadway was a huge dream brought to life, just before Covid struck, so I left it there, quitting the touring life and fringe circuit so that I could focus more deeply on my work as a musician and composer.
I returned to guitar, wrote more personal songs, levelled up my home-studio skills and released my debut EP Dissenter. I have since released the singles ‘Two Halves’ and ‘Burrow’ from my upcoming album Everspring, and am set for my next release ‘Mothership’ on June 12. I am absolutely relishing this process and more focused creative outlet.
What was your impression of the Adelaide creative scene when you first started, and how has that changed?
I think artistically Adelaide is going through a powerfully vibrant and interconnected phase at the moment, there are so many individuals and bands who are generating their own little scenes, which have tendrils that all connect together rejecting conventions and status quo. I love the genre crossover that you get in a smaller music scene, which I didn’t experience when I lived in Melbourne which seemed to have stronger walls between the cliques.
How has your own work evolved since you first started?
The biggest shift from my EP to my upcoming album is that the tracks are a lot more guitar driven. I play lead guitar and sing, and I love the polyrhythmic interplay I can get between vocal melodies and lead guitar rhythms. Frenetic exciting guitar rhythms soothed by layered melismatic vocals.
With my music in recent years I’ve allowed my childhood influences to seep into my work more deeply. My Dad was a drumming teacher fascinated by complex and exotic rhythms, and he also plays Kora and Ngoni, so picking up the guitar I think I play it less like a guitar and more like other instruments – Kora, Ngoni, and fiddle, borrowing ornaments and musical modes from my Eastern-European fiddle playing years. Also influenced by North & West African blues guitarists and Tuareg musicians.
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All the while I’ve listened to heavier and grungier music through my alternative scene and friends, plus I’ve also always been drawn to folk female vocalists, and often been compared to those with a more Nordic flavour – so imagining a mix of those influences you may get close to imagining my songs… maybe.
What is it about your next release that you’re most excited or nervous to share with the world?
The songs from my upcoming album Everspring all weave together themes of motherhood and the natural world. It is as much a celebration of the natural world as it is a wailing call to arms to save it, and is entrenched in the deeply personal experience of becoming a mother. This is something that has made me feel more connected with the wild parts of our world, and tied me more viscerally to my anxieties about our future in it, if we keep going the way we’re going. I’m nervous to share the tenderness in these songs, I guess because I don’t see a lot of other artists weaving maternal themes through their work. This has a lot to do with sexism and ageism in the music industry I think.
Who are the artists around you that inspire or challenge you?
Lucinda Machin: Award-winning sound engineer at Forest Range Studios and key collaborator in my work, also stunning solo artist (Lucinda Grace) and in The Tullamarines. Lucinda is a constant inspiration to me particularly with her skills in the studio, bringing amazing musical sensitivity to engineering and producing.
Jamie Lena: Beautiful song-writing, intricate guitar rhythms and a stunning voice.
Gilly & Bede: Those two are musically exquisite.
Thea Martin: (short snarl, capslock records, Any Young Mechanic) for being an artistic powerhouse, building community in the scene, and keeping the bridge strong between the arts with political and social issues.
Favourite venue to play?
I love playing The Wheaty and The Grace Emily.
Dream artist to perform alongside?
PJ Harvey .
Favourite artist to collaborate with?
Nature! I just returned from the Art for Takayna residency where I recorded soil sounds, and forest sounds to weave into my compositions. I will be donating royalties via EarthPercent which credits nature as a composer and generates funding for environmental projects.
Where is your next performance, and how do you hope it will go?
I’m playing on Friday June 19 at The Grace Emily as part of We.Are.All.Ants, the second edition of a curated night of femme soloists featuring Jamie Lena, Grace Vandals, Alicia Budd, Emerauld and myself. This also serves as a launch for my ‘Mothership’ single.
Anya Anastasia performs at the Grace Emily on Friday June 19
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