Anna Calvi - Strange Weather EP

Within her long-form escapades, Calvi’s demonstrated a neo-goth streak and a propensity for grand darkness. She’s swaggering with malevolent devil-may-care menace and lascivious red-light-district filth; it’s a heady, tempestuous melange that brims with confidence, emotion, and atmospheric delights. Not even a year later, she returns with an EP. A covers EP.

Strange Weather sees Calvi tackle originals from FKA Twigs, David Bowie, Suicide, Connan Mockasin and Keren Ann. It’s a mixed bag, that’s for sure, ranging from contemporary one-shots to vintage favourites.

First up is Calvi’s rendition of “Papi Pacify”, noir&B upstart FKA Twigs’ beefiest number. Calvi spins it from a creaking, clanking abyssal-black electro-ballad; a difficult doozy to approach, Calvi strips it back and unveils a skeletal twist. Instead of fluid synths and metallic beats, she employs operatic, ever-so-slightly dissonant piano and silence. Dynamics are used to great effect, and she swans between mouse-whisper coo to grinding, grimacing guitar on a whim. It’s unpredictable. While not necessarily greater than the original (though it feels unfair to compare such disparate versions), Calvi draws out a new facet which is very welcome, to FKA Twigs and Calvi fans alike.

Bowie’s “Lady Grinning Soul” is reimagined with Tim Burton-y devastation, Keren Ann’s “Strange Weather” – with the help of David Byrne – will reduce you to rubble and slag, and Suicide’s “Ghost Rider” is sleeker, throbbing with psychedelic pulses. Cover releases can go disastrously wrong – it’s an almost-notorious gamble for any self-respecting artist. Fortunately for Calvi, us, and everyone involved’s dignity, she handles the task like she’s carrying a baby made of eggshell china.

While perhaps, as is always the case with cover records, the necessity is debatable, she does add something new to each version. It’s often something distinctly ‘her’ that is added, be it a dramatic flourish of Romantic-era piano here, or an echoing scrape of sultry guitar there. Calvi thrashes, broils, sweats, cries and lusts through the EP, and returns to reality remarkably unscathed from Strange Weather. Kudos to Calvi.