Anni B. Sweet: From girl to woman

The blogs · Heroes for a day

…because the young singer from Málaga has got herself into a proper mess. She looks back fondly on recording Start, Restart, Undo with Brian Hunt when he didn’t even have his own studio yet and the two of them locked themselves in the bathroom at home to get the reverb they needed for the vocals. The result was a folk-pop album that has had an unusually long life. Almost three years later, after taking those songs around Europe and Latin America — after landing them in a Mexican youth TV series, she threatens to become a phenomenon there — and touring with a band that gave them a new dimension, Anni, Ana López at home, faces a new challenge: producing her second album herself.

Judging by what you hear in the studio, she has had plenty of work: «Please don’t get the wrong idea — you could almost say these are still demos, because we haven’t even chosen the takes yet… next week I’m going to Mexico to mix it with Phil». Phil is Phil Vinall, who was initially talked about as producer of Oh, Monsters! and will finally only handle the mixes.

Anni admits that before starting she had everything crystal clear and that every day in the studio her head gets a little cloudier. No surprise: the claustrophobic atmosphere of most recording studios isn’t far from a bingo hall, without a crack for natural light, designed so you lose all sense of time in marathon sessions. «Yesterday we left here at one in the morning». It’s one in the afternoon and they look like they’ve been up early. «Afterwards I was still on the phone for a while with Noni (Lori Meyers), who calmed me down a lot. He said that if you feel it when you record, that ends up transferring to the album and people pick it up».

Anni’s mother sang flamenco, but until now the daughter had refused to play that card. Through the speakers, at a certain point in a song, she breaks into a shout. She laughs and admits that little by little she feels more comfortable with her voice and that someday all of that will come out…

Text: L. J. Menéndez · Source: MondoSonoro no. 54, March 2012 · Mondo Web — The blogs.