Anna B Savage - “Hotel"

SXSW 2022 - OEB Score: 8; Popularity Index: 6

Pairs Well With…ANOHNI, Aldous Harding, Perfume Genius

Intricacy and care immediately jump out listening to Anna B Savage’s remarkable debut full-length A Common Turn. Based in elements of folk and baroque pop, there’s a cinematic quality to Savage’s music, slow and rising songs bubbling with drama. The London-based artist employs a textured alto vocal, an instrument that feels classically trained, but implemented in a progressive and haunting way on A Common Turn. That rich tone lets her songwriting carry, tales personal and raw that meld perfectly with the vulnerability displayed in Savage’s music. This is more opera than indie folk at a given moment and credit to Savage to finding a unique home in a crowded field of artists. The quiet moments are evocatively spare and the loud ones wall-shaking - Savage’s ability to build within and between songs gives A Common Turn an uncommon depth, a genre-less piece of art shared from an ambitious emerging artist. Note that Anna B Savage has since released the These Dreams EP, a collection that jumps into industrial rock and electronic pop amid sparer numbers, so don’t expect to pigeonhole whatever is coming next in 2022. (Kevin McStravick)