Anna Tivel Will Release New Album 'Living Thing' in May

Portland, Oregon-based artist Anna Tivel has announced her forthcoming sixth studio album, Living Thing, due out May 31, 2024 via Fluff & Gravy Records (Margo Cilker, Kassi Valazza, Jeffrey Martin).

More vibrantly sculptural than her previous releases, Tivel wrote the 9-track set through the tumultuous eyes of 2020 and recorded it with longtime collaborator and friend Shane Leonard (Bon Iver, Field Report).

Of the record, she offers, “I wrote feverishly in the strange chaos of that year, suddenly out of work and attempting to understand the shifting human fabric, the depth of desperation and the overwhelming tenacity of spirit. The resulting songs felt rhythmic and vital, with more melody and soaring chorus than I've explored in the past."  

Today, Tivel is sharing a music video for lead single "Disposable Camera," filmed and produced by Kale Chesney. Of the track, she offers, "A song for the everything of it all. For the wild science fiction of coming into the world. For the way it will break your heart. For the way it will make it race. Sometimes songs are slow and archeological, and sometimes they come busting out in one furious motion, just a potent feeling needing to come alive in language. I guess I wrote ‘disposable camera' in this frame of mind, trying to get at the chaos and the meaning, the roulette wheel of places and situations to be born into, and the deep human urge to find beauty in the struggle."  

Living Thing follows Tivel's widely acclaimed 2022 full-length, Outsiders, which received multiple Best of the Year nods from NPR Music, as well as Brooklyn Vegan, Aquarium Drunkard, Folk Alley, Post-Trash, The Boot, OPB, Folk Radio UK, and more. Album standout "Black Umbrella" was named one of NPR Music's Best Songs of 2022, and Tivel performed the track during her Tiny Desk Concert last year, alongside an unreleased new song called "Fluorescence In the Future" and Outsiders tracks "Heroes" and "Royal Blue."

Of the "quiet and riveting performance," NPR's Ann Powers praises, "As always, Tivel's remarkable empathy elevates her folk-based, jazz-touched compositions from mere stories to secular prayers...Inside [the trio's] swirling arrangements, Tivel's portraits of pain and resilience become hypnotic, like dreams, like reality as we cope with it, always unfolding."  

Living Thing will be Tivel's sixth studio full-length of all new, original material. Last year, she shared an unadorned acoustic version of Outsiders as has become her habit for each new record. She previously released Blue World in 2021 — a reimagined collection of songs from previous albums recorded live in sparse and experimental trio format, just keys, percussion, and vocals.

The project followed her widely acclaimed breakout The Question, which NPR Music called "One Of The Most Ambitious Folk Records Of 2019," and its stripped-down 2020 acoustic companion album. Tivel began garnering attention throughout the U.S. and UK with 2017's Small Believer, after establishing herself within the Pacific Northwest folk scene upon the release of 2016's Heroes Waking Up and her 2014 debut, Before Machines.  

Anna Tivel On Tour

April 4 — Bluebird Theater — Denver, CO*
April 5 — Armory Event Center — Fort Collins, CO*
April 6 — The Commonwealth Room — South Salt Lake, UT*
April 7 — El Korah Shrine — Boise, ID*
*supporting Charlie Parr  

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