The world is a mad basket of spinning chaos, full of the most intense beauty & pain. Something in me has always craved the slow motion version, a distillation of ordinary struggle, something to hold close when the high blue wave of it all threatens to crest. I guess this is a deeply human hunger. We want so badly to see the mundane & the transcendent lit up, see in our stories glimpses of the heroic, the vital. Writing songs, for me, is a constant attempt at the distillation, a devotion to watching, listening & trying to hold the small gravity of experience up to the light. See how meaningful? See how moving? Let me try again to tell it another way. Let me try again to believe it.
Here are the songs from ‘Outsiders’ recorded live & unembellished by the magic veil of production & band sound. Just my good friend Jon Neufeld & I in his living room with two acoustic guitars wandering through the stories as they were first imagined. Jon plays guitar with singular feeling, seems to live inside the emotion of every line as it forms. He’s intuitive & tender, spacious & reverent. I first heard him at the Laurelthirst Pub in Portland long before I wrote songs & have been spellbound by his playing ever since. We sat facing each other in wooden chairs, closed our eyes, & just let the songs be as they are. Jon captured the recordings, then mixed & mastered them into being. For those of you drawn to things at their most unadorned, this one is for you.
The live version of Anna Tivel’s fantastic 2022 album “Outsiders” is out in August, and she’s shared another track from it, a pared-down acoustic version of “Invisible Man.”
“Invisible Man (Acoustic version)” is the second single from Anna Tivel’s forthcoming ‘Outsiders (Live in a Living Room)’, which is due for release on August 18th, 2023 on Mama Bird Recording Co. ‘Outsiders (Live in a Living Room)’ is an acoustic companion record to Anna’s critically acclaimed 2022 album ‘Outsiders’.
All Selections Written by Anna Tivel
Anna Tivel: Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Jon Neufeld: Acoustic Guitar
releases August 18th, 2023 Mama Bird Recording Co.
The Fat Angel Sings 