A Common Turn is a lesson in self-awareness, of earnestness and of cathartic release.

It’s painfully fitting that as I sit down to write this the first family of blue tits of the season are hopping around the naked tree in my eye-line. Anna B Savage recently taught me a little about our winged friends, and told me that as soon as we’d spoken at length about birds, I'd be seeing them everywhere, and she was spot on. Anna is a self-proclaimed student of things, but with her debut album, she also takes on a teacher position, giving listeners an education in self-awareness, poignant honesty and atmosphere creation. A Common Turn, in Anna’s own words, is about “trying really fucking hard” and it shows in the waves of emotions throughout. A Common Turn’s tracks were recorded way back in June 2019 and, after what felt like push back after problem after problem, it wasn’t until Savage signed with City Slang that things felt hopeful for her again. Rest assured: this is a special record and a hell of a journey to take with the most meme-sharing rock powerhouse you haven't heard anywhere near enough of yet.

The first full track on A Common Turn is ‘Corncrakes’ which was the final song recorded for the album, closing a four year period of writing for the album. The slowcore-tinged first half is an effective introduction to Anna’s ability to create something so visual, building emotive imagery until it breaks at the refrain of “I don’t know if this is even real, I don’t feel things as keenly as I used to” which begins as an isolated vocal. There’s a sadness and an innocence, which morph into a rising panic, before ultimately fading as the refrain progresses with a quickening, loudening chest-thumping attitude as an exercise of pure and emphatic catharsis. Not all openness is as overtly cathartic though; in ‘Hotel’ Anna creates a clear image of a long night alone and lonely in a hotel room. We see her “breathe out and count to five,” see her tossing and turning and scrolling on her phone (her “only friend”) while listening to Nick Drake. All Anna has ever wanted to do is music, yet her night of struggling to reground in ‘Hotel’ is a result of being alone on tour. This is not the sole example of anxieties caused by her career as a musician either. In ‘Dead Pursuits’ Anna lays plain the fears over her own abilities, with rolling soft guitar beneath frantic vocals, clearly emitting feelings of failure, worthlessness and pointlessness, ending with the highly emotive crying out of “I can’t do it” and “is anybody listening?”   

Anna sings not only of her relationship with herself, but of relationships with previous and prospective lovers. In the gentle folk rock of ‘One’, Anna sings of not always feeling strong, of insecurity around sex, caused by bad experiences of very bad lovers. In Anna’s own favourite track from the record, ‘A Common Tern’, the most decidedly oblique number on the record, she sings of the end of a relationship. She feels sadness, bemusement and anger at the lover, whose favourite thing about the relationship was “how much you love me”. The track is probably the loudest rock song on the record with powerful rising and scattering guitar lines and drums. As in ‘One’, the other individuals in the song are used as a method of Anna moving in her own journey out of self-loathing and into self-acceptance. In ‘One’ she strives to stop her own mind foiling her strength and in ‘A Common Tern’ she understands her own value after a difficult relationship. Anna here shows us that even the poor experiences are necessary parts of the journey to understanding and appreciating ourselves for who we are. 

Vocally, Anna displays a variety of sound, from the soft and folky to the dramatic of musical theatre and the power of operatic. Musically, influences are probably even wider; for every more traditional sounding ‘Baby Grand’ or ‘BedStuy’ there’s an experimental ‘Two’ or ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’. ‘Two’ begins as a slow, thumping ballad with Anna singing of “never amounting to anything” but frequently changes pace and shifts between pained slowcore and trance-lite. The standout on the record though has to be ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’ with a jittery, flickering string effect looped beneath Anna’s vocal performance. In direct reference to Leonard Cohen, she lets us into a sexual encounter which began when “he was giving me head on my unmade bed.” We follow Anna’s thought process during the encounter and witness her dissociation from the sex itself. As guitar quickens, she sings of her first orgasm, her first vibrator and of learning to practice to “take care of myself.” The music rises and Anna screams towards rapture before her lover suddenly stops and breaks the pleasure, the music settles back to the reality of the initial jittery flicker. There’s almost disappointment as Anna realises she will have to finish herself thinking about “Tim Curry in lingerie” but there’s a realisation that her power comes from herself. If the journey of A Common Turn is from self-loathing to self-love, that realisation is never more apparent than in ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’ with Anna’s realisation that the love of herself and control over her own pleasures is the most valuable thing. Some will call the track explicit, but its honesty can be a lesson in dismantling taboos that exist only to desexualise women.

Anna B Savage says she “wouldn’t want to purport that I'm always open and vulnerable, because I'm not, and I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to be” and whilst that’s certainly true, in A Common Turn she has created a microcosm of openness and vulnerability, which offer simultaneous windows and mirrors through which we engage as a listener. The record is Anna’s space to reflect, to mull over thoughts and feelings, and stream her consciousness. But, in doing so, she allows space for us to learn from her experiences; she teaches us to ignore ridiculous taboos and helps us understand ourselves and our human connections a bit better. A Common Turn is a lesson in self-awareness, of earnestness and of cathartic release. There’s no need for Anna to worry anymore, plenty of people are listening and feeling every word.

Still Listening Score: 88