Anna B Savage
★★★★
In/FLUX
CITY SLANG. CD/DL/LP
Intimate second album from charismatic Londoner.
A radical take on heartbreak, this claws a path from obsession to hard-won serenity. Opening on a thudding heartbeat, The Ghost has Savage’s voice – so hollowly subterranean it could be Cleo Laine or Jarvis Cocker at his bitterest – laid against stark piano and tom-toms, darkening from amused reminiscence (“We used to notice the same things/That little pug…”) to misery. Pavlov’s Dog is blithely jazzy as she details the lover’s hold: “He said such/Dirty and kind things to me/Said I had strength in my sexuality…”; reduced to “waiting, salivating”, she’s become his trained animal. The pivotal title track is killer: fugue-like as, against a harmonium, Savage intones the affair’s end then ramping funkily into unhinged but liberated jubilation. The Orange is resolution, calm against lazy sax. “Don’t want kids or a partner/Right now that’s the god’s honest truth.” Frank and beautiful stuff.