Anais Mitchell

Anais Mitchell, Hymns for the Exiled
By Neil Pearson
Published Fall, 2004

After being awarded the prestigious New Folk award at Kerrville in 2003 much was expected from Anais Mitchell, but few could have anticipated an album as striking as ‘Hymns for the Exiled’.

From the opening verse of ‘Before the Eyes of Storytelling Girls’ it’s obvious that this is going to be something a little out of the ordinary – it’s immediately disarming while being literary and powerful. She has an obvious cultural and political understanding, and while this isn’t a disc full of politically charged songs, some of the best tracks here are intelligent comments on current issues. What separates Anais from other singer/songwriters with political leanings is that she delivers the message without compromising the song – everything fits together naturally and her thoughts are expressed in a more poetic and subtle way than most contemporary singer/songwriters.

This lightness of touch is carried over into the music; she has a natural, sweet and flexible voice that’s complimented by the spare backing – her own gentle guitar picking is fleshed out by further guitar, bass, violin and viola and the arrangements are excellent throughout.

This album contains some stunning songs, and the lyrics easily stand up on their own, and for those looking to delve further into the songs the liner notes provide footnotes and reference for most of the eleven tracks. While many of the songs address weighty issues (most notably ‘Storytelling Girls’, ‘1984’ and ‘Quecreek Flood’) the standout is ‘Orion’, an obviously personal song about the death of an Austin drummer, it’s a beautifully simple acoustic piece with a delicate guitar backing, a strong melody and a stunning vocal delivery.

‘Hymns for the Exiled’ is an excellent album; intelligent and poetic and well as being personal and political but where it really shines is in its accessibility which you rarely, if ever, find in an album as powerful as this. Very highly recommended. - Neil Pearson

“A songwriter of startling clarity and depth, equally skilled at turning a melody or lyrical phrase into what you didn't know you needed until you heard it... fearlessly emotive...like Dylan, Cohen, and Welch, Mitchell weaves her stories into an effortlessly beautiful and cohesive tapestry with the skill of an artisan's carpenter, showing no seams.”
- Anand Nayak, ACOUSTIC GUITAR

"In Mitchell’s universe, there is no light between the personal and the political, the venerable and the radical... she brilliantly intertwines the mundane and the profound, singing with the same intimacy about a carefree night on the town and wandering the warring towns of Israel. Her vivid snapshots of sweetly ordinary moments spin suddenly outward to bemoan the eternal woes of poverty and militarism.”
- Scott Alarik, BOSTON GLOBE

On Hadestown: "A remarkable entertainment. Spectacular musically and theatrically, with some minor repairs it could become a lasting musical theater piece with even Broadway possibilities. Think Bertolt Brecht meets Andrew Lloyd Webber..."
-Jim Lowe, TIMES-ARGUS (VT) - Various

“Vermont folkie Mitchell puts a modern twist on an ancient myth” – Boston Herald (2007)

“The opera is based on the tragic Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In Mitchell’s version, Eurydice (portrayed by Mitchell) is a down-and-out musician who professes her love for her fellow musician, Orpheus (Ben Campbell). She can’t resist temptation, though, when the demonic Hades (David Symons) lures her out of her impoverished destiny to Hadestown’s version of a potentially lucrative but almost certain hell – a mind-numbing, depersonalizing subterranean factory. …The message of the story is a familiar one: Be careful who you lend your soul to, especially if ‘The Man’ who’s keeping you down happens to be the Prince of Darkness. … So with Hadestown telling an oft-told tale, Mitchell’s production hinges on the way the story is told. And it’s told, thankfully, with clear-eyed creative verve.” – Burlington [VT] Free Press 2006

“Another year of experience and a tighter focus made the music more powerful, the visuals more sensual and Hadestown much more intense. …Mitchell presents a bleak world that, through all the angst and despair, is a joy to watch.” - Burlington [VT] Free Press 2007

“Last winter I caught the opening of something truly surprising: a great local bred folk opera. Hadestown was truly one of the best small stage theater productions I've been a witness to. Interesting adaptation, strong musical performances, engaging dialogue, questioning of the status quo.” – False 45th Blog.com (2007)

"Hadestown, Montpelier singer-songwriter Anaïs Mitchell's folk-rock opera which had its premiere Thursday at the Barre Opera House, is a remarkable entertainment. Spectacular musically and theatrically, with some minor repairs it could become a lasting musical theater piece with even Broadway possibilities. Think Bertolt Brecht meets Andrew Lloyd Webber.” – Times Argus [Montpelier/Barre, VT] (2007)

“But the opera is not so much a history lesson as it is a rich patchwork of artistic vision, social commentary and raw human emotion. Old-fashioned symbols of poverty and exploitation are fused with a kind of futurism — albeit a clunky, analog, “vintage” futurism (think post-apocalyptic Jeunet/Caro films City of the Lost Children and Delicatessen) — which prompts reflection on just how much we’ve evolved (or devolved) as a society since the 1930s. Above all, Hadestown is a love story – a love story exploring what becomes of the human condition under the most tragic and trying of circumstances.” – BumperShine.com (2008)
- Various News Outlets

There's a whole lot of dollar in country music, enough to fill a million-gallon Stetson, possibly twice over. Stateside there's even a special country version of the grim spectacle that is 'American Idol' in 'Nashville Star', and that's not the only entanglement the genre has with reality TV. 'Gone Country' is a show that follows a by now desperately overfamiliar arc in which celebs long out of their heyday attempt to become something they were, with a few exceptions, never meant to be: in this case, a country star. The first season saw the likes of Twisted Sister frontwoman Dee Snider, Wilson Phillips singer turned gastric bypass poster girl Carnie Wilson and *gulp* Bobby Brown lose out to Julio Iglesias Jr., and this year's ongoing instalment features 'Fame'/'Flashdance' singer Irene Cara, actress Sean Young ('Ace Ventura: Pet Detective', 'Blade Runner'), ex-Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach and Jermaine Jackson, among others.

Gruesome stuff, for sure, but it hasn't stopped 2008 from officially becoming the year of the country makeover. Jewel's effort was passable, Jessica Simpson's laughable and Snoop Dogg's just plain weird. Fortunately, Vermont folkie Ana�s Mitchell's country crossover is more Nashville Skyline or Almost Blue than the slick crapsville sludge we've seen from her peers, skirting around the edge of the genre with a lightness of touch and gorgeous vintage production. Teaming up with good friend and occasional touring partner Rachel Ries, Mitchell proves her mettle as a versatile writer and as a harmoniser par excellence. With commercial suicide not really a concern for these two relatively under-the-radar performers, they were free to concentrate on nailing the organic sounds and appeal of their onstage chemistry, letting the sentiment of the music speak for itself.

Anyone familiar with Mitchell's previous releases should easily spot which of the songs sprung from her pen and which from Ries's. There's two apiece, with a fifth song comprising a cover of Louis Ledford's 'When You Fall', and all feature some of the loveliest duetting since Emmylou took up with Gram. Mostly it's neither country nor not-country, and too humble by far to wear the alt-country tag. Banjo and pedal steel figure prominently but never to excess, even on the livelier numbers. As Ries puts it, "These [songs] are a bit more sly, not quite as straightforward as most country."

Ries's songs are affecting character studies of loss, sung in a sweet, plaintive voice that's her Sarah Harmer to Mitchell's Stacey Earle. 'Grace The Day' could easily be Sarah Harmer, it sounds so akin to much of her I'm A Mountain, while 'MGD' is full of the kind of thoughtful ruminations that seem to resonate the most while staring at the bottom of a pint glass in a saloon bar full of drunks and hard-luck tales (MGD = Miller Genuine Draft). The Mitchell-penned 'O My Star!' and 'Come September', in contrast, are more celebratory while sticking to the "high lonesome" feel of the EP as a whole. 'Come September' is positively upbeat musically with a jaunty acoustic guitar melody that works brilliantly with Mitchell's characteristically errant and gleeful phrasing to create an effortlessly natural sounding standout number.

The vocal interplay between the two is just lovely throughout and there's no misguided attempt to reinvent the genre. As Mitchell says of the EP, "It's a snapshot of our friendship - a chance to make music together and to honour some of our friends while we're at it." And while it's the Ledford cover that gives the EP its truest country moment, it's nice to see these two talented friends expanding their palette. Make no mistake, Mitchell and Ries are the most acceptable face yet of the current country makeover trend, blowing the pretenders right out of Bayou.

Alan Pedder
UK release date: 02/09/08 - Alan Pedder

Contemporary truthsinger
Sing Out! The Folk Song Magazine, Summer, 2007
by Hugh Blumenfeld

It's rare enough for a young songwriter to come along who is a genuine artist, a compulsive truth teller for whom words are like oxygen. It's doubly rare for that artist to strike a nerve with audiences. And so people are talking about Anais Mitchell.

Anais (a-NAY-iss) was raised on a sheep farm in Vermont, her father a novelist, her mother a community organizer. So she has roots, a critical eye and a generous spirit. She has also traveled the world, including South America and the Middle East, submitting herself to the serious study of history and languages. (She speaks three.) Mitchell confesses to ambitions as a journalist, and in her songs, contemporary events are both a major theme and an indelible part of the psychic landscape. The war in Iraq and creeping fascism at home leak from a television, a couple make love on a broken levee after the flood, the magi make it through a West Bank checkpoint huddled against the chill.

At 25, Anais Mitchell already has impeccable credentials. She made her first recording in a day down in Austin, and won the Kerrville Folk Festival's New Folk songwriters contest hands down the following year. There she was discovered by Waterbug Records' Andrew Calhoun, who offered to put out Mitchell's second effort before even hearing it. Convinced she was the next big thing, he got a copy of it to Ani DiFranco. And now, as the buzz about her is reaching the rest of us, Mitchell's third CD is just out on Righteous Babe Records.

Her singing voice is as distinctive as her writing and it's a bone of contention among listeners and reviewers. Part child, part siren, part waif--it's extremely skilled, but not exactly beautiful. As she says, it is the voice she hears singing in her head when the songs are given to her, and so she is completely unapologetic about it, and unconcerned. There is something disembodied and otherworldly about it, and she is able to use it to transport her listeners to places we would never get to by ourselves.

On the other hand, audiences are united in their appraisal of her performances. They adore her. She is extremely engaging, funny and charming, streetwise and still naively disarming. She stands before a house concert crowd, humble and a little bashful, almost surprised to be in a room where so many people have inexplicably materialized, then vanishes before your eyes into her singing, into her song. And for the duration you either follow her all the way down, or in or out or wherever she chooses to take you, or you find yourself alone in a crowded room somewhere looking at chairs and carpeting.

Both of her commercially available CDs, Hymns for the Exiled and the newly released The Brightness, are elegant' and spare. Most tracks are solo voice and guitar ... some using perhaps a hint of organ or synth as a pad, or the ghost of a banjo. Everything highlights the lyrics, which are dense and poetic. Backup vocals are rare, maybe because, really, these are largely solitary trips.

Anais sings of love among the ruins, coming of age to find yourself an outsider looking for the place you belong, finding other strangers along the way. Details of silverware and napkins, capes and shoes, the unexpected pooling of light, are offered like clues or keys to the reality all of us sense is imminent and eternal beneath the surfaces of things. These are observations that might be torn from journals, and like her journaling namesake, her real eroticism is saved for the world. That's why, like her heroines Ani DiFranco and Dar Williams, there's a sexual ambiguity about her work and why, even in her most intimate moments, she never sounds like a confessional songwriter.

Mitchell's ability to project experiences beyond her own is born out in her newest project, a folk opera she's written titled Hadestown. Scored by composer Michael Chorney and directed by Ben T. Matchstick, Hadestown is a cross of depression era labor politics with the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, a timeless fable about the power of music over death. It is, she says, her chance to create a cycle of songs that tell a story. Performed by a cast of twelve with a six-piece band in the pit, it played to sold out audiences at a union hall in Barre and at the Vergennes Opera House in Vermont this winter. She plans to tweak the piece, perhaps adding some songs, and produce a more extended series of performances around Vermont this fall. She also envisions a recording of the work (one song, "Hades and Persephone" is included on The Brightness) and possibly a tour. Meanwhile she continues to tour and write, keeping an online blog and gigging with local friends in their '80s coverband, The Sputniks. It's the music of her childhood, and, for her, keeps alive the pre-verbal, kinetic quality of music. Because for all of us, the power of music is to go back before we had words, and beyond where they are needed.

COPYRIGHT 2007 Sing Out Corporation
COPYRIGHT 2007 Gale Group - Hugh Blumenfeld

Anais Mitchell: The Brightness. (Sound recording review)
From: Sing Out! | Date: June 22, 2007
Author: Warren, Rich

Genius thy name is Anais. I should make it immediately clear I have no romantic interest in this person. Still in her early twenties, Anais Mitchell writes with the wisdom, sophistication and poetic ability of someone twice her age. Yet, she retains the freshness and spark of youth. With The Brightness she has grown and matured from her superb second CD Hymns For The Exiled. She also has moved from the small Waterbug label to Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe. Michael Chorney's outstanding production flawlessly compliments Mitchell's songs and gives her little girl voice the best possible setting. The production sometimes is complex, but never cluttered or overbearing. Often it's barely more than piano or guitar. Admittedly, Mitchell's voice sounds a bit unusual in an era of silver-throated songbirds, but she knows how to use her voice to convey the message. The perfectly sequenced songs flow effortlessly through the CD. Mitchell masters the subtle and the double-entendre in her lyrics. You grasp the songs the first time through, but then realize there's more than meets the ear. She mixes love/relationship songs with social/political songs. A fascinating song is "Namesake" that pays tribute to Nin and Joni, while at the same time being dramatically introspective, questioning not only the well-known poet and singer-songwriter, but also herself. "Shenandoah," based in theme and melody on the folk song, flows as a tributary of the traditional song. The specificity of her poetry is engrossing. She doesn't just mention an apple, she mentions varieties of apples. It's a song that lingers long after the last note has faded. "Song Of The Magi" returns to the Middle East, the setting for some previous songs, and brings the nativity up to the present. It will either raise your ire or break your heart. Similarly, she takes "Hobo's Lullaby" and boards a contemporary train with it, a train that includes many more hobos that the original. She bases "Hades & Persephone" on the Greek myth. It's an excerpt from an opera she's writing based on that tale. Mitchell fathoms this underworld and eerily takes you below with her. I've rarely heard a better-executed CD. It's not pretty in a conventional sense, but it's beautiful.--RWarr - Rich Warren

No Depression
March � April 2007
By Russell Hall

The first thing that grabs you about Anaïs Mitchell is her voice. Girlishly sprite and brimming with innocence, her singing brings to mind the hippie-throwback charm of Victoria Williams, though she says people more commonly note a resemblance to 80s pop star Cyndi Lauper.

"I never though of my voice as quirky or unique," Mitchell says, "but when my last record, Hymns For The Exiled, came out, it seemed some people had to get past something to start to like my voice. That was a surprise."

That near-childlike sense of wonder in Mitchell's vocals, coupled with literature-inspired wisdom, helps power Mitchell's songwriting as well. The Brightness, her new album (and first with Ani DiFranco's Righteous Babe label), features intimate songs that feel spindly on the outside but sturdy at the core. Recorded in a converted grain mill and nearly devoid of percussion, it features arrangements built mostly on fingerpicked acoustic guitar, with a smattering of organ, piano, banjo and viola.

"I lived above the studio," Mitchell says, "so I was able to just stumble down and record in my pajamas. The sound of the room was great. And being surrounded by these convex, honeycomb-shaped grain bins was a wonderful feeling."

Making the album in a grain mill was fitting, given that Mitchell, 25, grew up on a sheep farm in Bristol, Vermont, that was run by her parents and shared with her grandparents and other tenants. Among the tenants were members of a jazz band, and when Mitchell was 13, a deal was struck whereby the band's guitarist gave her lessons in exchange for reduced rent. For years later, inspired by the Lilith Fair crowd, she began writing songs.

"I knew from the start that's what I wanted to do, but I was too shy to talk about it," she says. "You get this sort of pitying look from people when you say you're going to be a singer-songwriter. They figure, "Oh, you mean you're going to be a waitress..."

Mitchell studied political science in college and began attending music festivals and playing local gigs. Her first big break came in 2003, when the Kerrville Folk Festival honored her with its New Folk Award. Events unfurled quickly after that, starting with 2004's Hymns For The Exiled on Waterbug Records. A promoter friend of DiFranco invited the indie-label pioneer to one of Mitchell's shows. Eventually, DiFranco and her manager offered Mitchell a record deal.

"Actually they said, "You should make the album you want to make, and if we like it then we'll put it out," Mitchell explains. "They're pretty non-interventionist in that way"

High points on The Brightness include "Song of the Magi," a guitar-and-viola ballad inspired by a friend's holiday trip to Bethlehem; "Shenandoah," which brings to mind the recent work of Sam Phillips (if Phillips' voice were an octave higher); and "Hobo's Lullaby," which features John Cale-style viola set against an Appalachian backdrop.

Themes of unrequited love haunt the disc, but Mitchell's main inspiration was The Alexandria Quartet, a series of novels from the late 1950s by British author Lawrence Durrell.

"It's a sort of tenuous connection," she concedes, "but the heart of the record does come from that. The novels are about arriving onto a scene whose moment of cultural brightness has passed, and wanting to will that era back into existence. That same feeling can apply in the case of a former lover. There's that feeling of trying to recapture a flame that you could have sworn was there." - Russell Hall

AllMusic.com
By Margaret Reges

Anaïs Mitchell is a bundle of contradictions. She has the earthiness of Shawn Colvin, the child-like bite of Joanna Newsom, and the urban jumpiness of Ani DiFranco. Her lyrics are sprinkled with rosy similes ("you roll like the rolling waters/you rise like the bright morning stars") while they simultaneously touch on everything from politics ("Hobo's Lullaby") to literature ("Namesake," a reference to Mitchell's namesake, Anais Nin) to mythology ("Hades & Persephone"). These elements, as disparate as they might seem, come together as nicely as cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, and from the sound of it Mitchell is poised to live up to her new record label, Righteous Babe, on The Brightness. This is a decidedly, ahem, brighter album than her previous effort, opening with a joyful summons ("Come out, come on, come outside"). The Brightness finds Mitchell with a newfound confidence. Not that she skirts pain or sadness on this outing; songs like "Of a Friday Night," a meditation on a departed poet, and "Shenandoah," a ballad about the loss of a friend, dip into isolation and loss. On Hymns for the Exiled, Mitchell might have approached these songs with a helping of self-consciousness and timidity, but on The Brightness they're approached with a kind of sympathetic energy that lifts them nearly to the level of exaltation. This is, granted, incredibly earnest music, but it's hard to hold that against Mitchell given how well she writes, how honest she is, and how far she's come in such a short period of time. - Margaret Reges