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DAZED

RANKIN SELECTS

SETS HER SIGHTS ON 2012 AND BEYOND ANNA CALVI

AFTER A BLOCKBUSTER YEAR, THE SINGER-SONGWRITER

Rankin: “Anna Calvi has got this incredible duality to her – I find that when you meet her, she’s actually quite shy, but then you see her sing and you’re like ‘Oh my God, where did that come from?!’ She works within the genre of the music she’s making but takes it to a higher level that’s really exciting.”

After the kind of year that Anna Calvi has had, many of you probably don’t need much of an introduction. The 28-year-old singer’s self-titled, Mercury award-nominated debut – a whooshing, Debussy-meets-the blues, stream-of-consciousness affair that features Brian Eno demoted to backing vocals – was hoovered up by music fans and championed by critics when it came out in January.

“I just had a really good night,” she says of the Mercury award ceremony in September. “I didn’t think I was going to win but I don’t think it would have been the right time. I want to grow and produce better work with each album. The extra tension it would have brought at this stage would have been wrong for me. And we’re not athletes – we’re not in it to win.”

The heightened feel of Calvi’s songwriting comes from “the sense that part of you feels like you are in control of your life – but part of it is out of control. There is a struggle between succumbing to your desires and trying to keep control and not feel certain things. This push and pull is something I like to address.”

Like Dazed, she can just about remember what she was doing 20 years ago. “I was actually picking up the guitar for the first time; I was eight and I was listening to Jimi Hendrix and my dad’s old records, getting really excited about it. I started writing songs when I was about nine and I’ve just played guitar endlessly ever since.”

So what about in 20 years’ time? “I’d like to be the kind of artist who is quite removed from the mainstream; someone like Scott Walker, who puts out an album every ten years. He works on it in private and produces these amazing pieces of work, but he doesn’t have to deal with the press and people bugging him – he’s an artist.”

Text TIM BURROWS Photography RANKIN Styling NELL KALONJI Jacket by VIVIENNE WESTWOOD GOLD LABEL, ring by HUSAM EL ODEH Hair JAMES BROWN at PREMIER HAIR AND MAKEUP for JAMES BROWN LONDON PHOTO FABULOUS Make-up KRISTEN PIGGOTT at JED ROOT for RIMMEL Digital operators MIKE TINNEY, MATTHEW THOMAS Film MARK GLENISTER, JOSH COOPER, ALEX SIMPSON Photographic assistants MAX MONTGOMERY, JACK MCGUIRE, DAVID ADAMS Styling assistant SARAH MONA Make-up assistant MOLLY AITKEN at JED ROOT