Artist interview: Anna Anise
By Resonate | November 24, 2021
Words by Dylan Shortridge
Photos by Beth Goodchild
Anna Partridge, better known in musical circles as Anna Anise, is sitting in the BIMM Student Association office. She is currently Vice-President, and, having previously also been President, she’s more than familiar with the current academic surroundings. She has spent the last two and a half years of her life studying at BIMM, but in just a few short months that will all be over. Next to her is Bethany Roberts, a folk artist who plays with Hands of the Heron and co-founder of Cuculi records – a DIY folk label based here in Bristol. They are both at the tail end of a recording process that has culminated in the creation of Anna’s first solo album project, All That Magic. Not only will the album mark Anna’s final year of university, but it is also one of the first projects released in what is hopefully the successful birth of Cuculi Records. With this exciting chapter starting for both Anna and the label, we got straight down to business…
I know we are all sick to death of talking about it, so I’ll get it out the way early. Talk me through what’s creatively come from your COVID experience?
Anna: I haven’t really thought about it much because it’s something we are all so ready to move on from. Though, this album was definitely born out of that time and me being really methodical with my writing: I was setting myself targets like writing a song every week through the whole of the year and a half, and really trying to set these targets for myself to keep the muscle flexing. I think without that I would have just been sitting waiting for the inspiration to come and it wouldn’t have come.
Bethany: I didn’t have much choice because all of my gigs and teaching got cancelled, or moved online. I focused my attention on properly learning about production. I hadn’t really needed to before, but my band Hands of the Heron were putting out our second album and I ended up being kind of the intermediary between the recording engineer and the rest of the band. We couldn’t go and sit down and do all of the stuff you want to do in person, so I ended up going really deep into a production hole. As well as starting Cuculi Records – that was kind of my whole lockdown.
Give me a run-down of how the folk scene is in Bristol at the moment.
B: It’s really vibrant at the minute. It feels like there’s so much collaboration going on. Because we weren’t able to gig last year there’s an urgency about finding projects, finishing projects, and making things happen at the moment. I also know a lot of people in the folk scene enjoyed having a slower approach to the way that they approach music, being able to come off the ratrace for a bit. From my perspective at least there is quite a buzz for Bristol’s folk scene. It’s just a really lovely space and there are so many friends making beautiful music. I’m more excited about music from Bristol than I am about music from anywhere else, I think. Which feels great after living here for ten years.
Anna, I saw that you managed to spend a lot of time travelling the country over the summer. Did these travels inspire your writing at all?
A: Yeah definitely, I feel like moving around and travelling is constantly helping me to be creative and it also sheds light on some stuff that you have already written so you see it in new ways. When you’re travelling to new places and meeting new people it really gives you an insight into those other things. One thing I find particularly inspiring is places of real calm. I went paddleboarding on Loch Venachar in Scotland. I was out in the middle of the loch and where it had been raining in the morning it was really quiet. I couldn’t see anyone anywhere. When the sun came out the water was like glass, and I was just sat there. You have that calm moment then suddenly afterwards such excitement for all the things you’re going to do when you get back home.
We should definitely talk about the album. Talk to me about your recording process.
A: It was so fun. It was all my friends from BIMM. It was Beth Bucher on production, Beth Goodchild on drums, Rosie Witten on bass and a load of my songwriting chums on backing vocals. Beth [Roberts] did the strings.
B: And Brandon Vasiliou on piano.
A: All mastered by Theo Passingham. There were just so many of us – when we all came together we had a real strict, planned out agenda. Everyone worked so hard to get so much done in such a short space of time. We had four days of recording, over two weeks at BIMM’s Studio A on King Square. We did a further day at Beth Butcher’s home studio to finish off vocals and then the mixing process has been with this Beth [pointing at Bethany Roberts]. There’s quite a few Beths!
B: Honestly, it’s like Anna cast a net of her friends and thought, how can I make this as confusing as possible? Anyway, so I’ve been mixing at home in my house in east Bristol. It’s been great.
And Anna, now you’re coming to the end of your time at BIMM it’s probably fair to say you’ve been a pretty big part of the community. How do you feel BIMM has impacted you as an artist and a person?
A: BIMM’s been brilliant. I feel like it’s one of those places that whatever you want to throw into it you’ll get it back tenfold. Not enough people realise that, I think. There’s so much you can do here. We recorded our album using all BIMM resources – BIMM’s studio, BIMM mics. We have all the resources here. You don’t necessarily even realise what there is you could be taking advantage of until you ask.
Anna Anise’s debut album All That Magic will be released on Cuculi Records.
You can access Cuculi Records’ website, here
For more artist interview click, here