How do we talk about destiny from the balcony of a nation in decline?

KURATED NO. 279
VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL 49
RECENT RELEASE Animal Poem by Anna Tivel
PART 1 OF 2: THE JOY OF MUSICAL DISCOVERY

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Album cover for Animal Poem

CONTENTS

Part 1 of 2: The Joy of Musical Discovery

There’s a unique and particular joy in finding a musician who’s new to you. You might catch a riff they’re playing. Or a turn of phrase grabbing you just the right way. Perhaps you heard or read about them in an interview and sense the presence of a like mind. And then you listen and check out as much of their music as you can find.

My ears and eyes are constantly tuned in and I come across a generous share of surprises and musical finds. In the past few weeks I’ve found two such artists.

Today’s post features Anna Tivel.

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Portland’s Anna Tivel is a highly regarded singer-songwriter known for her observant lyrics. She’s been recording and touring for the better part of 12 years. Tivel is playing the Vancouver Folk Music Festival for the first time on the weekend of July 17 to 19.

LIVING IN THE EMOTION OF THE MOMENT

“How do we talk about destiny from the balcony of a nation in decline?” 

In her quietly remarkable songs Anna Tivel elevates the joy and struggle of ordinary life with empathy. A poet before she was a songwriter Tivel brings curiosity and an observant eye to her characters giving them voice to share despair, joy, wondering and more.

“I think of music as a kind of community center,” she tells music writer Brian D’Ambrosio last August. “Every room has its own history, its own energy. You walk in, try to give yourself as openly and honestly as you can, and if you do, people share their energy back. That’s when it feels like being really human together.”

Authenticity is at the core of her work. That approach over the past 12 years has earned the Portland-based singer-songwriter a reputation as one of folk music’s most gifted poets.

On Holy Equation – the opening song on her latest disc Animal Poem – she speaks in the first person for the struggling waitress who laments “The discount groceries / And the timing belt trouble / I’m waking up early / I’m bussing the tables / this whole thing is really a hopeless equation.”
It’s summarized in the chorus:

The math doesn’t add up
There’s holes in the fabric of dreams
You see right through
Good luck to the lucky few
And God bless the rest of us fools

She tells Ambrosio that records are less about answers than about attempts: “Each one is a grasp at understanding—why people are held down by systems, why relationships fracture, why the world can be cruel and kind at once. Writing is where I reach for learning.”

The music behind the words

While words propel her engaging stories and ideas, her vocals and instrumentation feature well-rendered arrangements. Many of her songs are unhurried and minimal leaving space for silence and a calm approach.

Over the course of seven albums Tivel presents a range of vocal styles that have her reaching delicate high notes, intimate whispers, soaring choruses and raw, angst-ridden pleas. She purposefully avoids over-complicating the music so that the focus remains on the narrative. Despite that she describes her in studio arrangements as deeply collaborative and experimental pushing her out of her comfort zone.

Holy Equation is one subtle example with its closely miked acoustic guitar and intimate vocal allowing us to hear every breath she takes while her fingers squeak across the strings. The haunting Paradise stands in contrast. A searing electric guitar opens with minor chords; passionate vocals build towards a contained and tumultuous crescendo and an abrupt end.

Artist’s liner notes

Not only does Tivel write great lyrics, and provide good interviews, she also writes meaningful liner notes to accompany her albums’ releases. The first write-up below is from her Spotify notes for Animal Poem. The second is from her Bandcamp blurb.

Animal Poem was made in conversation …

Here we are. Mysterious humanity unfolding. Animal nature howling. 
How do we learn what it means? Maybe being here is a story told by all of us at once, a constant reaching for language, an impossible telling of something inherently indescribable. 

Animal Poem is a meditation on the attempt. How do we talk about destiny from the balcony of a nation in decline? How does our attention shape the way we touch the natural world? In the face of endless avarice and cruelty, how do we talk about the realness of love?

Recorded live in a circle with some of my dearest friends, Animal Poem was made in conversation. We wanted to be together in the room, to listen and respond in real time without the separation of walls and headphones. Everyone in the studio made it feel so open, made it easy to forget technology and permanence and just play, messy and alive. 

It’s this vital mess that moves me when I listen now – ghost notes in the high register of the piano, melodic guitar and bass lines briefly interwoven, earthy cymbals breathing, my dog barking. 

We came back to add saxophone, strings, vocal harmonies, and a few other tastes, but most of what you hear is just people sitting together in a small room, listening and talking with tenderness and abandon. This album is my own small addition to the communal story. 
The water we swim in. 
The way our attention molds our truths. 
Humanity is unfolding as we describe it. 

We’ll never get it right, but the attempt is everything.

Bandcamp notes …

I met Sam Weber the summer before and resonated deeply with his musicality and his reasons. We sat around on porches swapping tunes and I asked if he would help me make something that felt as unadorned and free. He donned hats seamlessly – co-producer, engineer, musician – setting mics and checking levels before returning to curl around his guitar and disappear into each song. Everyone in the studio made it feel so open, made it easy to forget technology and permanence and just play, messy and alive. It’s this vital mess that moves me when I listen now – ghost notes in the high register of the piano, melodic guitar and bass lines briefly interwoven, earthy cymbals breathing, my dog barking. We came back to add saxophone, strings, vocal harmonies, and a few other tastes, but most of what you hear is just people sitting together in a small room, listening and talking with tenderness and abandon.

The songs were written on long drives across the country, airplanes, walks through my neighborhood, nights spent lying on the roof. Every album is a snapshot, a momentary study of the way a mind reaches for understanding. I can feel myself reaching in these songs, for whatever is right beyond my grasp. Mortality and connection. Suffering and meaning. People lead the narratives, come into orbit, spin away again – an exhausted mother at a freeway exit, an aging neighbor surrounded by a growing pile of newspapers, the unsung heroes of a midwest uprising, two lovers looking at the sky. 

Kurated is tuned in
Kris Sig Plastic V3

19 June 2026

PLAYLISTS

Spotify

YouTube

Animal Poem full album
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG-pRIXeCU7eWM1gciKnhdHvR-3n78Ow6

Anna Tivel 12-song Sampler
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLG-pRIXeCU7cuBaSNtQ3Qhh72Ju3bxneU









Kurated is tuned in
Kris Sig Plastic V3

19 June 2026