Description
Discovered in the underground music scenes of Camden Town by the BRIT Award winning producer Ethan Johns (Laura Marling, Paul McCartney, The Staves, Ray LaMontagne), Ann's debut record explores the limits of prescribed identity in a brave and sensitive challenge of the zeitgeist; sonically and thematically.
The record begins with an orchestral piano ballad, moves through sweeping 70s folk revival and ends in an entirely digital sonic landscape, and Ann's powerhouse vocal presence and poetic, prophetic words carry us through the songs on this remarkable journey.
The cross-cultural symbolism of the three rabbits, and the Chinese idiom, ' ????' (Clever rabbits need three burrows) became an emblem of the existence and power of the third, she shares 'it began when I realised my mother is from China and my father is from England, and I was born in the year of the rabbit. I am English but in both countries I get questioned, so I felt I could neither be Chinese nor English, but a third entity, trying to exist in a culture that needs binaries. But in this continuous journey that I am trying to negotiate, where even this third burrow constricts and limits my sense of self, I wonder if I am not a rabbit at all. This record is my journey up until that point. '
The self, the other, and the relationship between the two - these rules of three - are the bedrock of her exploration. Ann weaves Anglo-Celtic folklore, sacred texts, and sonic binaries of modern digital synthesis and classic singer-songwriter roots with integrity and precision. Sensitive, brave and timeless, Clever Rabbits is a story told in her distinctive land of elegant, wonky folk.
For fans of Fiona Apple, Laura Marling and Sufjan Stevens.