A sense of rootedness is at the heart of Anna B Savage’s third record You and i
are Earth, a record that is as much about healing as it is an unbowed sense of
curiosity, and, more simply, “a love letter to a man and to Ireland.”

Following on from her critically acclaimed records A Common Turn and in|FLUX,
You and i are Earth manages to convey a sense of intimacy, while also being
open-ended. Sounds of the sea and bright-eyed strings coax us on opening song
Talk to Me, a study in tenderness, which brings us to a place of the elemental. It is a
charged signifier that sets the tone, “I don’t think I feel nervous because of the
intimacy of it,” says Savage, “the thing I feel nervous about is that it is so delicate
and subtle, and the attention economy has made us desire big shiny things that will
whisk us away.”

Yet You and i are Earth transports differently, swept along by an abiding sense of
calm, a major progression from Savage’s earlier work, “when I was writing the first
record, it felt difficult. I wanted to make sense of something I didn’t really
understand. Then with the second record I had done some therapy, and was getting
to grips with myself, but my old self was still pulling me back a bit, but with this one
it was quite different”.

Gentleness is as radiant a touchstone on the record as earthiness, something that
Savage attributes to the place she finds herself at present, both geographically and
emotionally. And quite literally the record bears witness to a particular piece of earth
- Ireland, and Savage’s relationship to it as her new home.

Savage’s connection to Ireland goes back over a decade to when she studied a
poetry Masters in Manchester, where both her teachers were Irish, “and I totally fell
in love with Seamus Heaney” she recalls. “Then in 2020 I did a Masters in Music (in
Dublin) and was reading essays about sean-nós singing, watching Cartoon Saloon
stuff, reading about Irish mythology - I wanted to educate myself”. Since then Anna
has spent much of her time on the west coast of Ireland, dipping back to her home
in County Donegal between bouts of touring (this year supporting The Staves and
St Vincent - having previously toured with Father John Misty and Son Lux amongst
others) and trips to London for work (this year alone she has soundtracked a new
Alex Lawther-directed short film “Rhoda” which premieres at London Film Festival -
and was part of Mike Lindsay’s “Supershapes” - a collaborative album and
super-group led by the Tunng & LUMP producer and multi-instrumentalist).