WIN FREE TICKETS TO THE SHOW: Thanks to Newport Live, we have a pair of free tickets to give away. For your chance, e-mail Ken Abrams at mrabrams11@gmail.com by Friday, October 27 at 5PM with “Anna Mieke tickets” in the subject line.
You have to give credit to Dick Lynn, Executive Director of Newport Live. Over the past few years, the music industry veteran has booked several artists to the Newport-based music series who later went on to play the Newport Folk Festival, a big step for singer-songwriters more accustomed to playing small rooms. Those artists include Jake Blount, Raye Zaragoza, Jobi Riccio and SG Goodman. Indeed, Lynn knows talent when he hears it.
Lynn’s latest find is rising star Anna Mieke, who will be playing Newport’s Colony House on Friday, November 3. Mieke will be a long way from the villages of County Wicklow in Ireland where she hails from. She was an RTÉ Folk Award nominee in 2019 for “Best Emerging Act” and in 2020, her song “Warped Window” appeared on the show Normal People. Her second album Theatre (2022) was nominated for the RTÉ Choice Music Prize and she recently supported American bands Wilco and Bonnie Light Horsemen at shows in Ireland and toured the U.S. earlier this year.
“Its really interesting to be around these acts who’ve been touring for a long time, and just watching them on the stage, how it flows, I could never imagine it flowing so well with the audience,” Mieke shared in a recent Zoom chat from across the pond. “I guess that comes with time and the dynamics between those in the band; they’ve played together for such a long time.”
Mieke didn’t start performing live until 2015 when she was 25. “I decided to focus on music a bit more when I was juggling a few jobs. I recorded my first album, Idle Mind, in 2018, and then the pandemic hit, and I spent a year a half wondering what to do, developing my sound a bit with my band.”
Her latest album, Theatre, “ written mainly during the pandemic,” features a dreamy, ethereal sound, with poetic lyrics that invoke reflection and contemplation.
“With this album, I had a band when I was recording; on the first album, I didn’t,” she said. “A lot of the songs are very guitar-driven, and I was writing them in a relatively short space of time, so thematically, they feel connected. It’s a much more cohesive body of work than Idle Mind, my previous album, which was more of a putting together of all my first songs, songs that I had written over the years. I really enjoyed both writing and recording Theatre live in a room to try and capture that energy.”
Mieke offered some insight into her songwriting process.
“As I’m writing, I’m trying to find a place to get lost in, if that makes sense. Not that I’m not present, but if I’m being too analytical while writing or performing, it doesn’t have as much of an impact or satisfaction.”
Her music is often labeled as British Isle Folk, although her contemporary sound aligns more closely with the indie singer-songwriter genre. “I’m not writing to fit into a particular genre,” she explained. “I’m really inspired by music in Ireland now and before; a lot of that music would be more in the realm of traditional folk; no doubt it feeds into my music and everyone else’s music here in Ireland.”
Mieke is quickly building a fanbase in the U.S. “I toured for three weeks in February, supported Iron and Wine in March, and also did a residency in New York. I really love it. It’s such an intense place in the hugeness and with the different cultures, the amount of things, and people in cars and roads,” she laughed. “It’s quite fascinating, coming from somewhere like Ireland, you certainly realize how small a country it is People mention the warmth of Americans and I really did feel that; the audiences were super welcoming and I was really struck by that.”
Click here to listen to Anna Mieke.
Click here for tickets to the show.
