Anna Calvi shares the mic with Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson and the National’s Matt Berninger on her new EP, Is This All There Is?, which Domino will release on March 20. The set, which is the first in a planned trilogy of new music, also includes a previously released cover of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s “I See A Darkness” with Perfume Genius.
The Pop collaboration, “God’s Lonely Man,” is out now and features both artists in its accompanying video, which was directed and produced by Luigi Calabrese and Dominic Easter. It was filmed in Pop’s adopted Miami hometown. “He’s disruptive, raw and honest — a singular force,” Calvi says of Pop. “His presence was so perfect for the narrative of this song.”
Elsewhere, Calvi teams with Anderson for a radical reinterpretation of Kraftwerk’s “Computer Love” and enlists Berninger for the EP’s title track. She says, “scoring the final two seasons of Peaky Blinders really altered how I create music. I always used to imagine my songs as mini films, but with this EP I wanted to explore a narrative which could exist throughout all the songs.”
Calvi hasn’t released a full-length album since 2018’s Hunter, which reached a career-best No. 22 on the Official U.K. Chart. “Having a child was so transformative it made me consider the possibility that everything in life could potentially shift, and that is scary but incredibly freeing,” she says. “I didn’t want to take anything for granted any more. I want to exist in the best way for my child. I wanted to ask the most basic human question — is this all there is?”
As previously reported, Calvi also contributes to the upcoming War Child charity album HELP(2); her song “Sunday Light” also features Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell, Nilüfer Yanya and Dove Ellis.
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