NEW ALBUM: Anna Smyrk 'Spectacular Denial' + Upcoming Shows
Anna Smyrk debut album, Spectacular Denial
+ upcoming Community Garden Shows
+ album launch shows
Dealing with grief in all its many guises, Anna Smyrk unveils her album Spectacular Denial on Friday 20 March, and her focus single ‘Crying in an Internet Cafe’. Produced by Anna Laverty (Courtney Barnett, Nick Cave), Spectacular Denial is a glittering collection of songs ranging from heartbreakingly vulnerable folk ballads to 90s grunge bangers, created in the wake of Anna unexpectedly losing her father. Continuing her run of shows across Community Gardens in Australia, Anna will bring the tour to Victoria and New South Wales, with album tour dates announced for Eora, Meanjin, and Naarm this April and May.
The album has received support from international heavyweights BBC Scotland and Amazing Radio in the UK, as well as radio stations across the US, where it reached #20 in the specialty album charts. Back home, songs have landed in the top 5 AMRAP Rock Charts.
Spectacular Denial's songs range from hopeful to thoughtful to despairing and back again; the album mirrors the unpredictability of grief rather than a straight line from grief to acceptance. Woven amongst moments from her recent years, the focus single ‘Crying in an Internet Cafe’ offers a more irreverent moment, inspired by Anna’s backpacking in her early 20s, when she was so far away from home and needed a way to put feelings into words.
The album opens with ‘Skin Thinner’, a reminder to open yourself to all emotional experiences, even when it hurts. It moves through ‘Garden-Variety Grief’, the cathartic track that gave us the first glimpse of the record and inspired her Community Garden shows, to the foggy state of denial in ‘This is a Drill’. She sits down with fellow songwriter Luna Keller to marvel at the disconnect between one's own internal darkness while in a world of natural beauty in ‘Sit Down in My Shadow.’ ‘The Future Conditional’ is the album's grunge rock moment, followed by gnarly synths paired with soft vocal layers in ‘Keep Up is Bringing Me Down’. With a few funny anecdotes in ‘Crying in an Internet Cafe’, Anna deftly balances moments of lightness and darkness. While most of the album was recorded live in the studio with the band, ‘See It Everywhere’ was an exception, a song built slowly, layer by layer. On ‘This is Going to Get Worse, Anna references a children’s book, We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. She says, "I think there’s a perfect metaphor for grief in that book - the idea that you can’t go under it, over it, or around it, you just have to go through it, and talks about it in ‘Line by Line’, written on an aeroplane bathroom floor. The album closes with a final ode for her father in ‘I Don’t Believe in Heaven’; the hardest and loveliest song for Anna to play live, the moment she feels closest to him.
As Anna began some of these songs live, she saw how audiences connected with them and were permitted to sit with their own losses. “I’ve loved talking with people after shows and finding these moments of solidarity. Grief can feel like a very isolating thing, but there’s something about these songs that seems to make people feel a little less alone. It became clear pretty quickly that I wanted to record them and get them out into the world.”
The past two years have seen Anna tour across North America, Europe and Australia, with official showcases at SXSW, Folk Alliance International and NXNE. She has toured non-stop, sharing stages with the likes of Birds of Tokyo, Strands of Oak, Tim Rogers and Bachelor Girl, performing at some of Australia’s finest festivals, Woodford Folk Festival, Port Fairy Folk Festival and more. Her 2023 EP Cortisol and Blue Light (recorded in Nashville with Jake Finch and Collin Pastore of boygenius/Lucy Dacus) received worldwide acclaim, charted on US college radio and earned playlisting on MTV.
Whether you want to sit amongst the flowers at a community garden or join Anna at one of her East Coast launch shows, get ready to enjoy the many layers of this album this Autumn.
Spectacular Denial is out on Friday 20 March via Community Music + Bandcamp
Anna Smyrk Upcoming Shows:
Thursday 19 March
Melbourne University Community Garden
12 pm
Saturday 21 March
Joe’s Market Garden, Coburg
10 am
Sunday 22 March
Yiiro Community Garden, Euroa, VIC
2 pm
Wednesday 25 March
Addi Road Community Garden Marrickville, NSW
6 pm
Thursday 26 March
HUM Records, Newtown, NSW
6:30 pm
Saturday 28 March
Inner West Sustainability Hub, Summer Hill, NSW
12 pm
Friday 10 April
Red Rattler Theatre, Marrickville, NSW
Special Guests Tamara & the Dreams + Safety First
Tickets
Saturday 11 April
Can You Keep A Secret?, Woolloongabba, QLD
Special Guest Chelsea Costar
2:30 pm
Tickets
Saturday 2 May
Northcote Social Club, Northcote, VIC
Special Guests Kit Genesis + Georgia Fields
8 pm
Tickets
Tickets on sale now www.annasmyrk.com/tour