Orlando director Sally Potter announces forthcoming second album, ANATOMY

“I wrote ‘Coming Home’ as a song of loss about an ancient tree that has been cut down to make way for a trainline,” explains Sally Potter. “I found myself contemplating trees and the profound interdependent relationship we have with them, personally and globally. I wanted to evoke the relentless sound of an approaching train with rolling drums and a wailing guitar, to express a state of furious mourning for destroyed forests – ‘the ones that breathe for you and me’. But ‘Coming Home’ is also a song of private grief for loved ones cut down before their time, whether human or of any species.”

Alongside the release of the new single, Sally Potter has announced news of a London live performance at Cafe OTO on Tuesday 6 May as well as a talk at Rough Trade East on Thursday 8 May.

Sally began this current stage of her music career with the release of her first studio album, PINK BIKINI, in 2023. A record chronicling her experiences as a young artist and activist in 1960s London, there is a through-line between its songs of youth and rebellion and ANATOMY’s contemplative urgency, following Sally’s lifelong commitment to engaging fiercely with the world around her.

“I've been involved in one form of protest or another my whole life,” she says, “whether it was marching against nuclear weapons when I was 14–that's part of what PINK BIKINI is about–or marching against apartheid in South Africa or marching for women’s and gay rights. The marching never seems to stop, and unfortunately, it doesn't always seem to bring about the desired result. But this record isn’t about holding up a placard or lecturing people—it's trying to bring pleasure through music as a way of processing pain. One of my biggest musical heroes of all time is Billie Holiday, and I think she was the example of somebody who was singing about the most excruciating kinds of political and personal pain, but in a way that made you want to listen again and again, because it had a healing effect. It's as if her voice was processing for all of us, in a beautiful way.”

Tracklist:

1. Anatomy
2. Coming Home
3. Words
4. My Earth
5. Carmegeddon
6. Walk Away
7. Time To Go
8. Come Back
9. Honey
10. Oh Daughter
11. Elegy
12. The Fall