Anna Calvi, Mercury Prize nominee and Peaky Blinders scorer for season five, took to Instagram today to celebrate the two year anniversary of her seminal LP Hunter. The album was originally released in 2018 by Domino. Calvi has since released an acoustic reworking of the LP titled Hunted, which featured famous names such as Charlotte Gainsbourg and Joe Talbot from IDLES.
Hunter is an apt name for an album so ferocious and primal as this one. Calvi said that she chose the title because she ‘hate[s] the fact that strong words about going into the world and taking what is yours are so male-gendered‘. This hatred is clear from the first track onward. In As a Man Calvi sings over a repetitive bass-line and war-like drums: ‘If I was a man in all but my body// Oh would I now understand you completely’.
It is an exploration of the still pervasive sentiment that Queen Elizabeth expressed when she defended her status as a female leader with the words ‘I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king‘. Calvi said in a press release that: ‘If a woman wants to be powerful she’s expected to exhibit ‘male’ traits… the woman in the song is trying to understand a man by imagining becoming him, but as it progresses she asks the man to become more like her instead’.
She continues, ‘there hasn’t been enough effort for men to become more like women… Men are brought up believing that to be feminine is to be weak… both sexes need to be able to move to the middle of the spectrum’. This measured and interesting idea runs through the album, especially on the track Don’t Beat the Girl out of My Boy.
This song starts with a doo-doo chorus over upbeat guitar. It is a joyful celebration of gender non-binary ideals, a call to society to let the children be. To let boys cry and girls be bossy in the playground. Toward the end of the track Calvi sings ‘I shout out// Let us, be us’ and lets out a Kate-Bush-esque wail for a full 40 seconds. Her passion and pain toward the subject of gender is evident in her cry, and as a result its sound is enough to send shivers down anyones spine.
The album is a political piece of artistry. It remains as relevant now as it was two years ago, if not more so.
