NEW ALBUMS
ANNA MIEKE
Theatre NETTWERK
8/10
Second from singular alt.folk voice
Perhaps it’s down to her peripatetic background, living variously in New Zealand, Bulgaria, Spain and Ireland, but Mieke’s gossamer-like songs are almost impossible to map. At her alt.folk simplest she suggests Bridget St John or Vashti Bunyan – but then she glides intangibly into a textured improv in which her finger-picked guitar and ethereal voice are swathed in gorgeous layers of sax, clarinet, synth, violin, harmonium and harp. The effect is hypnotic rather than baroque – think the drones of Lankum or even Terry Riley’s undulations on “Mannequin” – while her poetic lyrics seem to yearn with a nostalgia for a world that perhaps exists only in our dreams. Beguiling and really rather wonderful.