Vigília de Anna Andreu

Perhaps because there is a past and a chosen path. A memory that sets the course, toward a longing filled with certainties and a conscious acceptance that neither everything nor nothing is permanent. With Vigília, her third album, Anna Andreu reaches a stage of exceptional creative and interpretative maturity. After the masterful and multi-awarded Els mals costums (2020) and La mida (2022), Anna Andreu here solidifies her unique and genuine imprint, as well as an extraordinary gift: transforming the delicate and atomic into something resounding and solemn. Through simplicity in both form and format, and accompanied by her inseparable drummer, violinist, and partner, Marina Arrufat, along with Jordi Matas once again on production, we find guitar plucking that is both soothing and defiant, drum rhythms that rush and climb, the enigma woven from silences and sonic mists, a majestic voice invoking with air and poise in every song and every story—a wisdom.

Vigília is a songbook that explores the concepts of nocturnal tension and solitary thoughts before plunging into the abyss of sleep, the latent waiting before an important event, the restrained emotion of a vigil, and a paradoxically radiant darkness that allows everything to be understood with clarity. Contrasts that extend beyond night and day: the before and the now, oblivion and longing, the pain that pierces and the tender healing, the relentless advance and the cautious pause, that which is up there and this which is down here; a you and I—now distant, now in counterpoint, once indivisible. In two also complementary tonal blocks: the blazing impetus of Major chords and the introspective yet incisive character of the minor key. Compositions that share codes and a distinctive sensitivity: an allegorical, vivid, beautiful, and brutal natural setting, fables and a collection of original proverbs brimming with wit and wisdom, and a constant poetic and moving pulse. Vigília is a journey between lost desires and found fortunes. A skillful and powerful compendium of timeless classics by one of the leading creators of contemporary Catalan singer-songwriter pop. Songs as immense as mountain ranges, with a sky stretching wider than ever, where the most fleeting instant can become eternal.

Mireia Madroñero