Ann Liu Cannon is the Marlborough success story I hadn’t heard of until yesterday; thanks to local promoter and frontman of the Vooz, Lee Mathews for the tip off! Her debut album Clever Rabbits was released today, and it’s a must…….
Brit Award winning Paul McCartney and Tom Jones producer Ethan Jones spotted Ann Liu performing at Camden’s Spiritual Bar, leading her to a publishing deal with BMG. Ann, who now lives in London, represented Whispering Bob Harris at The Great Escape and Black Deer Festivals, featured on Beans on Toast’s stage at Bearded Theory and on his UK tour. She opened for Lewis Ofman in Mexico, played prestigious venues like The Clapham Grand and The Hotel Cafe Hollywood in LA, but delighted to tell me she schooled in Marlborough and grew up in a nearby village; and I thought St John’s girls just sat around the Priory Gardens smoking menthols!
Okay, calm yourself. That was just an eighties joke, and you know this! But remain calm for Clever Rabbits because it’s a breathtaking ride, a tapestry of Anglo-Celtic folklore, sacred texts, sonic binaries of modern digital synthesis and Ann Liu’s classic singer-songwriter roots. “I am the rabbit that knows how to kill the hill, and I have only just begun,” she expressed.
Experimentally playful, with two piano-based ballads opening Clever Rabbits, there’s an ambience of musical theatre about them, then with an irresistibly simple drum and bass the title track runs akin to a Mardi Gras iko-iko chant. Lost Ways has the shuffle of South America rhythms, and we’re halfway through these ten uplifting masterpieces with a bittersweet psychedelic swirl called Tangle.
No You Don’t is acoustic blues with a hint of lounge jazz, as gorgeous as the ultimate Norah Jones song. Another tune in, and rather I’m now pitching this alongside Joni Mitchell; it’s that strong, naturally raw, and yeah, folk, fundamentally.
The album continues in a similar fashion, uplifting jazzy folk under sublime soundscapes and broken wonderfully with snippets of humorous band banter, which usually are outtakes. It lifts in tempo with False Hope, and chills for the penultimate Movement of Standing Stones, which builds in layers of atmospheric spiritual ambience, and finally a minute and half of bizarre with Gobbleknoll, breaks the concept this isn’t really a book by Richard Adams and Ann Liu is not a rabbit after all!
Exploring limits of prescribed identity in a timeless, brave and sensitive challenge of the zeitgeist, the album is inspired by a Chinese idiom “clever rabbits need three burrows,” and the imagery of three rabbits found in Devon’s churches and China’s caves. Clearly, with profound narrative, you would need to dive deeper into this warren to explore. After one listen, though, you will feel it criminal not to. Everything in this melting pot of influences is subtle, the overall feel is a mellowed thoughtful prose sitting somewhere between the exploratory of Kate Bush and punch of Alanis Morissette, both jamming under the aura of Steeleye Span.
This isn’t an album for streaming. This is a take my money album. The attention to detail is divine. The unedited recordings’ background goings-on authentically puts you in the room. In promoting it, Ann Lui revealed the backstory. “When I was ten,” she explained, “my father gave me records by Ethan. When I turned 21, I got a call from Ethan after Raf sent my music to him. We began capturing these songs, and my father began dying. Today I turn 26, my father is dead, and the record is born.”
“In the first 25 years I found powerlessness in slow, bad, unwanted death. In limbos and dependency. I found power in wilful endings. In choice. Love ran underneath in a welcome riptide, contextualising the hurt and loss. I nursed wounds, read my stories, read other people’s stories, broke away, reflected, mourned, rejoiced, set free. The first quarter century has been about endings, leavings, dying, and dying well. This album is a good death. The bin men are smiling. I am smiling, too.”
A launch for Clever Rabbits is at London’s Lexington tonight. Ann Lui returns to her roots, as she regularly does, with an Instore at Sound Knowledge, Marlborough on Thursday 17th July at St. Peter’s. Entry is FREE but please do let them know to expect you if you’d like to attend, or pre-order a copy of ‘Clever Rabbits’ from them to guarantee your place.
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