ANNAHSTASIA - Tether

There's a word that curbs the enthusiasm and the conscience of rock music fans, a term whose inclusive nature is often glossed over and cheapened in the chatter of social media and music criticism: that word is folk.

Just how many misunderstandings are bound up in the commodification of an artistic attitude that offers far more interpretive keys than one might imagine was proven by anthropologist and musicologist Alan Lomax with his field recordings, and confirmed by the genius of Bob Dylan, the Beatles and Elton John, who drew on the heritage of folk and popular music to help create modern music as we know it.

The link between the concept of folk music and Annahstasia's artistic identity is captured in one of the earliest statements made by the then up-and-coming American singer-songwriter: "Folk music is more like a naturalistic concept - if pop music is made for capitalism and consumerism, then folk music is made for collectivism, for community and for love."

That all this narrative power is entrusted to a voice so shadowy, pulsing, spare, instinctive and controlled, more inclined to explore dark tonalities (even though it could aim for vocal ranges of considerable power) speaks to an uncompromising creative vision.

Everything the young artist has expressed so far across her three released EPs bears this out. While flirting with chamber-folk and soul leanings that have placed her somewhere between Tracy Chapman and Anohni, what emerges is a sensibility ready to implode, giving rise to the most intense and compelling debut of the year.

In Annahstasia's voice there is, in truth, not only the seductive fragility of the finest folksingers, but also an inscrutability with a powerful poetic charge, filtered through corrosive soul tones. The instrumentation is deliberately spare, essential and just simple enough to be intelligible to everyone, yes, because "Tether" is an album that captures attention regardless of stylistic preferences.

Annahstasia's music is rich in shades of grey, while at the same time it's multicoloured, not necessarily multi-ethnic, as the proponents of social-media hype would have it. After all, the American singer has already renounced that commercial machine that wanted to reduce her qualities to those of a tormented, tormenting shouter, an acrobat of notes already written and already heard, devoid of any authenticity. The American artist's musicality is unkempt, raw: a handful of chords on banal, ordinary instruments like guitar and piano, a pinch of esotericism — a viola, a synth, a Hammond organ and other incursions of bass, drums and electric guitars — all of it in service of an album that floats with an elegance that in recent times has illuminated the work of Chantal Acda and Benjamine Clementine.

The compositions are a showcase of composure and harmonic depth that takes your breath away. The notes seem to push through countless obstacles blocking their emotional release ("Waiting"), they are cries muffled by a fragility that makes Annahstasia's voice resemble a precious piece of porcelain ("Take Care Of Me").

At times the dialogue between voice and guitar finds room for more energetic emotional vibrations: the scorching notes and trembling voice of "Villain" sweep everything away, intoxicated by horns, organ, violas and gospel choirs that for a moment seem to brush against the sky. An epiphany that repeats itself in the equally implosive "Silk And Velvet", which even manages to cause a stir with a noise-guitar break.

The disarming simplicity and beauty of "Satisfy Me", the perfect duet with Nigerian artist Obongjayar on the spiritual, ecstatic "Slow", the remarkable fingerpicking textures worthy of Nick Drake on the caressing, reflective "Unrest" — these are all small, rough-cut diamonds that Annahstasia scatters with seeming nonchalance across a precious sonic fabric, made up of ambitious folk-soul liturgies that tear at heart and mind with just a few notes ("Be Kind").

"Tether" is not an indolent or mournful album. Annahstasia doesn't linger in melancholy to mask her own weaknesses — quite the opposite, she flaunts them shamelessly on the sparse "All Is Will Be As It Was", a moment of pure poetry shared with Aja Monet, dresses them in wild, seductive pop sounds on "Overflow", and finally entrusts herself to the corrosive power of rock music for a pure sonic orgy like "Believer", six minutes that definitively tear down the last stylistic frontier and hand this year an album to be preserved for future generations.

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09/07/2025