It might seem like a relatively small project on paper, with just four tracks, but Is This All There Is? feels bigger than that. Introduced as the first part of a planned trilogy, Anna Calvi’s new EP feels tightly controlled, with well-judged contributions from its collaborators.
Calvi has always favoured precision, and she manages to pull her guests into her world rather than the other way around. Iggy Pop, Matt Berninger, Perfume Genius and Laurie Anderson are big names, but they’re used with care rather than as decoration. Each track carries enough cinematic weight to feel like it could belong to a larger soundtrack.
On ‘God’s Lonely Man’, Calvi’s higher register cuts across Iggy Pop’s baritone after he’s set the mood, creating something colder and more uneasy than a straightforward rock duet.
‘Computer Love’, on the other hand, is the standout moment. Laurie Anderson’s spoken delivery, familiar from her otherworldly ‘O Superman’, fits neatly into Kraftwerk’s framework, reworked here into something more ghostly. Calvi’s backing vocals hover around it, giving the track a strange, suspended feel that lingers after it ends.
It’s predictable to say you want more from a project this short, but it’s also true here. As an opening chapter, this EP is focused and effective. If Calvi builds on it across the next two releases and allows the sound to stretch out a little further, this could turn into something much bigger.
