Start Listening To: Anna Mieke

From Maori songs to recurring dreams, Anna Mieke finds coming home the inspiration for her new album.

The 2019 release of Anna Mieke's critically praised debut album, Idle Mind, earned her a nomination for the RTÉ Folk Awards in the category of "Best Emerging Act." She began 2022 with headline tours through Spain, the UK, Ireland, and other countries. Following the release of her critically acclaimed second album, Theatre, we caught up with Anna to take a look through her kaleidoscopic experiences and find out how coming home has inspired her songwriting.

Can you tell us who you are, where you’re from, and something about the music you make?

Anna Mieke, from Wicklow, Ireland ~ I write songs and play them mostly with Matt Jacobson, a percussionist, and Ryan Hargadon, a saxophone/clarinet/synth player. I’m a guitar player and I sing, too. Our music tends mostly towards folk but leans in other directions too.

How did it all start?

My parents have always been very encouraging of us playing music.. There was always an open piano in the hall, a guitar in the corner, records playing. There was always a soundtrack to trips away, different family eras. I learned violin, piano, cello while growing up, and taught myself guitar from chord books. I started writing song ideas on the piano when I was a teenager. It wasn’t till I finished university that I started writing on guitar and paying it a bit more attention.

You have travelled a lot, and if I’m not mistaken, you spent time in New Zealand learning Maori songs as a child. Can you tell us a bit about what you remember most, and do you still sing any of these songs?

My dad did a job-swap with another doctor in New Zealand and we swapped lives for half a year ~ we lived in their house in Plimmerton on the North Island and went to their school and dad worked in their dad’s surgery, and they did they exact same thing in Ireland. Yes I have vague memories of learning Maori songs in school and can remember bits ~ similar to how kids here in Ireland would learn songs in Irish and we all remember fragments of the same songs. In no way was I “immersed” in Maori culture, but at least as a 5 year old, it was pretty impactful to witness/experience a snippet of another, very different, culture to my own, in daily life at school. In general, I mostly remember the house we lived in, right on the beach; it was on short stilts and penguins lived underneath. The tide would come right up to the garden and we’d kayak off the end of it. We did a lot of exploring of the South Island, climbed glaciers, skied on a volcano that was spouting ash, and trekked jungles. It was quite surreal and remains as this kind of hazy, magical memory.

We love your new album, Theatre. Can you tell us a bit more about the process behind this album?

Thank you.. I wrote most of it during lock-down. I moved to the countryside in Wicklow after years of living in different cities in Ireland. I’m learning that I’m a lot more social than I thought I was, so that move hasn’t always been easy, but living out here has been amazing for working/writing/playing. I was able to get into such a rhythm of writing. Going for swims in the sea or in the river near me, hiking a lot, writing/playing in the late afternoon/evening/late at night. A huge benefit of living out here is not being worried about keeping neighbours awake with noise...I feel most inspired at night…10/11 pm..and don’t need to worry about using my amp. Space, too, I have so much more physical space than I would if living in the city.

What’s it like working with Nettwerk?

Great - they leave me to it, 100%. They do their thing, I do mine; we keep quite separate, and I value that. They’re very accommodating and have worked hard with this release. I guess there are some labels that very much push a lifestyle and the idea of them being one big family, with all the artists connected musically, which obviously has huge benefits; I don’t necessarily feel that’s the way with this label, for me personally (especially me being here in Ireland), but for this album release, working with them is suiting me well.

Your music is very intoxicating, and a lot of that is down to your lyricism, which you have described as ‘rooted in the ugly, mundane side of things.’ Can you elaborate on this, and how do you approach writing lyrics?

Mmm... I don’t set out to write out a song about a particular thing...It just becomes itself as I continue with it..my lyrics tend to just exist by doing a lot of stream-of-consciousness writing and journaling, a lot of reading…I spend a LOT of time just gathering words and phrases and collecting them all..mostly things I read (poetry mostly), short stories, sometimes things people say or lines in scripts. Or just from my own journal writing/observations. With Theatre, and in fact, just writing in general, I notice different themes/patterns appearing and a tendency towards certain words/word shapes/imagery/word colours. At the moment, at least, one of the themes that often comes up is man-made ‘things’ vs their opposite (nature, I guess?)..and that co-existence/dependence..but also our disconnect. I think, just aesthetically and tonally, I’m interested in that clash. Hence why, in my lyrics, I’ve included words like tarmac, plastic, corrugated, asphalt, porcelain. Something quite hard, unmalleable and permanent about them versus the ever-changing nature that they exist in and come from.

Where do you call home right now, and how does it influence your music?

Wicklow ~ living in a cottage not too far from where I was brought up. I’m surrounded by mountains and forest, and the sea is a short drive away. I imagine it influences me in a big way (maybe in spaciousness?), but I can’t be sure. I guess I feel a lot more aware of changing seasons, other living things, quietness ~ which can be quite humbling, so maybe that change in my awareness/attention is the thing that then feeds into my music.

Who or what inspires your music?

Who knows. Everything and anything has the potential to be inspiring. I guess I find traveling and moving and newness pretty motivating to write about. Films.Going to shows. I sometimes have such an urge to write after coming home from seeing a gig ~ so yeah, other musicians really inspire me. I listen to a lot of music and am constantly researching and listening to new things. I’m learning more and more that connecting deeper to my visual aesthetic is very inspiring to my writing. One informs the other in a big way, back and forth. Colours and textures are very ingrained in my writing too. All of the songs on this album feel warm, grainy and terracotta coloured, and also the colour of night-time and humid dark green.

We love the song ‘Seraphim’. Have you ever had any supernatural experiences?

Thank you. I love playing that one. That’s the oldest song on the album..took me a long time to write the lyrics. The reason for the word Seraphim is because I love the sound of it, and it sounds like/rhymes with the original word I was initially using ~ the name of someone. I decided to change it as it was perhaps a bit too raw and not my place to use it. But yes, the word itself is connected to magic, spirituality, angels. I can’t say I have had any supernatural experiences, but I definitely have moments of feeling very connected to something greater than me, a tiny part of a bigger whole, and a sort of ‘magic’ in that.

What’s your earliest memory?

Black and white chequered laminate tiles at the kindergarten I went to. I’d originally been going to the kindergarten that my mum ran, but then, because she was my mum, I was really bossy to the other kids and she had to move me to a different one (the one with chequred tiles). I remember some guy came in dressed as Father Christmas and I was just really suspicious.. “Why is some guy here with a very obviously fake beard and a Wicklow accent pretending to be Father Christmas when he’s clearly not him?”

Do you have any recurring dreams?

I used to, for years and years; I had a repeating dream of my mum walking away from me in a shopping centre. I only ever saw the back of her. Everyone else was panicking and running in the opposite direction and she just kept walking, away and up an escalator and then into this huge cloudy fog where she’d just disappear into. Obviously some fear of being abandoned as a small child in that! I’m fortunate to have had very present and attentive parents growing up (and still do)

Mountains or sea?

Eeeee both! Maybe sea though. Depends which one and where. My favourite beach in the world is the one near me in Wicklow (top secret).

What are you reading right now?

‘The Glass Room’ by Simon Mawer and working my way slowly through the November edition of ‘Poetry’ magazine. Not getting that many opportunities to read at the moment though. With the album release, there’s been a lot of computery admin times. Hoping to get back to reading in a big way soon.

Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s important to you.

I will always always return to Nick Drake (Pink Moon + Five Years Left), Leonard Cohen (Songs of Leonard Cohen) and Cat Stevens (Tea for the Tillerman). I just find them so incredibly nostalgic and memory-triggering, such soundtracks to another time.

What do you hate right now?

Procrastinating

What do you love right now?

My little nephew, my first and only sibling.

What’s the best gig you’ve ever played?

There’ve been many highlights, but one that’s coming to mind is playing in a totally packed pub, The Courthouse, I think, in Dingle for Other Voices, 2019. Just the best audience ever. It was sweaty and disorganised and chaotic and really brilliant.

What’s the best gig you’ve ever been to?

Some stand-out shows that had a huge impact on me were…Nils Frahm (National Concert Hall, Dublin, 2017), Wooden Shjips (Grand Social, Dublin, 2013) and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds (All Together Now, 2022)

What comes next in the Anna Mieke story?

A whole lot of touring in 2023. More residencies, more writing. I also want to learn how to play saxophone.

What 2022 music releases are you most excited about?

It’s almost the end of this year…but Irish artist Rachael Lavelle’s new album sometime in 2023 (check out her track ‘Perpetual Party’).

Is there any new music from 2022 you have been enjoying?

Yes, so much. First names coming to mind are Katie Kim (with new album ‘Hour of the Ox’), Aoife Nessa Frances (Protector) and Elaine Howley (The Distance Between Heart and Mouth), caroline’s self-titled album and Daniel Rossen (You Belong There’)

Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

Come see us play!