Ambient duo AVA share moving debut single ‘Waves’ inspired by the chaos of Brexit
Ambient duo AVA share moving debut single ‘Waves’ against the backdrop of Brexit
Debut album Waves to be released via One Little Indian July 12th
AVA play Nils Frahm’s Piano Day at The Barbican tonight at 7:00pm
LISTEN / SHARE HERE:
https://open.spotify.com/track/3PAMWLxTZmAUPH8K4r5YXe?si=QwBmn5doSrm8pr06x1Rzsg
“It’s as if the pair are bonded by a telepathic musical attraction”
Prog Magazine
“Beautiful”
Mary Anne Hobbs, BBC 6 Music
“Distinctive shimmering sound…so gorgeous”
Elizabeth Alker, BBC Radio 3
AVA is Anna Phoebe and Aisling Brouwer – a duo who create ambient soundscapes based on intricate interplay between violin and piano. Both are professional composers in their own right; Aisling for film and TV and Anna for the Royal Ballet School (as well as a session musician for multi-platinum selling bands and artists), but it is through AVA that the pair carve out their own musical identity in collaboration with each other. They are set to release their debut album Waves on One Little Indian Records (Poppy Ackroyd, Manu Delago, Roger Goula, Gabriel Olafs, Amiina, Björk), on July 12th – a deeply personal record written for those looking to find solace in a world full of unrest.
As British residents born and raised in mainland Europe, the musicians started writing Waves with the Brexit referendum on the horizon. In the wake of the vote, the music became a search for common identity against a backdrop of uncertainty, expressed through their emotionally driven post-classical music.
Their lead single of the same name, ‘Waves’ is the first cut from the album, written in a studio on the Kent coast, a mile from the white cliffs of Dover, and subsequently inspired by the vastness and unpredictability of the ocean.
Coming from mixed European backgrounds (Anna Phoebe is German/Greek/Irish and Aisling Brouwer is Dutch/Irish) and having each grown up moving around multiple countries, the pair respectively made Britain their home, meeting for the first time and writing together in 2015. “When Aisling and I started writing together, it was against this background of social and political turmoil – we were both trying to understand our identities within a country where we had built our lives” explains Anna Phoebe.
“The music sessions we had together were an escape from all the noise. We would take breaks from writing and walk onto the beach, looking across the water at the outline of the French coast…discussing what it was to be European in a country where people had voted to reject Europe. All those mixed up emotions found their way into the music, exploring the complex layers of identity we all have — the layers of who we are and where we fit in.”
No strangers to a constantly changing surrounding environment, their relationship to the violin and piano-based pieces they composed together became one of emotional catharsis. Through AVA, they found their musical counterpart and individuality. “We just started improvising and I was feeding off the chords Ash was playing. This rolling melody came into my head – I was imagining Ash’s piano playing as the sea and the violin like the surf, rhythmic and melodic, coasting along the waves coming into shore.”
Aisling adds; “I moved to Berlin at the end of 2017, after nearly a decade in the UK, living in Brighton, Bristol and London. I had studied there and made it my home. As someone who has always identified more as a European than with any one country, I was shocked by the Brexit vote. When I would go down to see Anna in Kent, we would often discuss it and the ways in which the world was changing. Then we would go into the studio to write, and escape into this musical world of ours where nothing else existed.”
AVA look for beauty amongst the madness, for a corner of comfort in an insecure world. “This music was an emotional oasis for us, to explore everything we felt away from all the noise.” The duo play Nils Frahm’s famed Piano Day on 29th March, the same day they drop their wonderful first track, ‘Waves’.