Auckland singer, songwriter and producer Anna Coddington has released a new album Luck/Time - a feat,considering she's also produced two children in the past four years. Yadana Saw finds out more.
Anna Coddington. Photo: Mareea Vegas
In the five years since her last full-length release, Anna Coddington’s foot has somewhat slipped on the accelerator of life.
“From my last album to now there was a break up, there was meeting someone new, having two kids...my life went into hyperdrive and I’ve ended up where I am, somehow.”
It’s a somewhere she is happy to be, though she says she didn’t necessarily steer her ship in this particular life direction.
“When I first found out I was pregnant with Arlo, my oldest son, it was not part of my plan at all. It was a bit of shock really, it was a little frightening but I just sort of rolled with the punches. It’s best I could have hoped for. So I feel really lucky to have landed up here with two kids and album, and all sorts of other crazy things.
Anna Coddington Photo: Mareea Vegas
Which is why the album is called Luck/Time. And given the past five years in Anna’s life, the “time” seems self-explanatory, though it’s not clear whether she’s referring to how much she has squeezed in, or how long things have taken.
Anna explains that the gap between her albums was not meant to have stretched this far. The first single Bird in the Hand, produced by SJD, was released in 2013, and in her mind the album would have been out later that year. But life got in the way, and when Arlo was little, making music was not really on the to-do-list, though for a songwriter it was the perfect provocation:
“I’m one of those people were songwriting is a bit of a compulsion, it’s a necessity. It’s a way processing what’s going on, and for me there was such a lot going on that I needed to process in that way.”
The natural tendency for artists, or for anyone, starting a family, is to retreat into a world of nappies, naps and not much else, this has not been the case for Anna.
Earlier this year, whilst pregnant with her second child, Anna was part of the musical cast of Dusk to Dusty that debuted at the Auckland Arts Festival. And just last month she was onstage, not long after pepe arrived, at the Silver Scrolls performing Rob Ruha’s Maioha awarding winning waiata, Kariri.
For Anna, writing, recording and producing her album has turned out exactly how she wanted, “every track on every song, every aspect of it I really pulled it apart and was very deliberate on how I put it together.” Luck/Time is quite an evolution and departure from her acoustic, singer-songwriter beginnings; a decidedly assured and eclectic sounding album, where the basslines are prominent, and for Anna, “the starting point for every song.”
Luck/Time is out now on Loop Recordings
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Music Details
Artist: Anna Coddington
Songs: Luck/Time, The Runner, Too Far Gone
Composer: Anna Coddington
Album: Luck/Time
Label: Loop Recordings
