In poet and songwriter Anne Malin’s “Summer Angel,” tales of love and violence intersect in dreamlike soundscapes. Conceived in response to the poem “Summer Angel” by Alfred Starr Hamilton and Marianne Faithfull’s rendition of Morrissey’s “Dear God Please Help Me,” Anne Malin sings with childlike wonder and a sense of harrowing indictment, playing with the lyric as a multilayered tool for self-expression and self-protection alike.
“Summer Angel" wields prisms in the face of sexual abuse and its nonlinear aftermath, asking: what is healing, what is self-harm, and what might freedom look like? These songs, brought into full form with collaborators Will Ringwalt-Johnson, Trevor Nikrant, Jake Smith, DJ Young, and JayVe Montgomery, reveal Anne Malin’s fluid vocal range: capable of operatic force and cutting delivery, and confident in navigating the grey areas in between.
Echoing Henry Mancini and Songs: Ohia in equal measure, “Summer Angel” is Anne Malin’s most ambitious project yet. Produced by Andrija Tokic (Josephine Foster, Alabama Shakes) at the Bomb Shelter in Nashville, TN, Anne Malin and her collaborators worked with ease and humor, benefiting from Tokic’s vibrant conceptions of the songs. Tokic embraced an inappropriateness in production, collaging sounds—from saxophone, pedal steel, and orchestral percussion, to name a few—with agile nonchalance.
The band, chosen for their breadth of experience with song-form genres as well as fully improvised music, dynamically constructed sonic environments around the initial live tracking. Anne Malin, committed to one-take vocal delivery during the band’s live tracking, similarly embraced the possibilities of improvisation and the many shapes a song can take.
credits
released June 17, 2022
Music and lyrics written by Anne Malin Ringwalt-Johnson
Performed by:
Anne Malin Ringwalt-Johnson: voice and guitar
Will Ringwalt-Johnson: electric bass, voice, organ, omnichord, guitar, pedal steel
JayVe Montgomery: saxophone and electronics
Jake Smith: guitar, voice, twinkles
Trevor Nikrant: drums, organ, synthesizer, vibraphone, twinkles
DJ Young: drum set and timpani on 4
Produced, recorded and mixed by Andrija Tokic at the Bomb Shelter (Nashville, TN)
Assisted by Jack Tellmann
Mastered by John Baldwin (Nashville, TN)
Painting by Katie Watson
Photo by Abby Johnson
Layout by Michael Cormier
Redeemer is for Tag Hauschild
Summer Angel is for Alfred Starr Hamilton
I love these women. the voices mesh together perfectly; also the world music is exceptional. I have all of their albums and they're all excellent. Give them a listen. Steve Lake
This is the singer-songwriter companion to October's instrumental Bloodletting, played on the banjo, and contains an intimacy and intent that's drawn me to Wendy's music — to unravel and tangle an idea until it takes form. https://www.vikingschoice.org/archive/vikings-choice-to-bandcamp-friday-nov-2021/ Lars Gotrich
With a hybrid of analog and synthesized sounds, Turin-born Daniel Colussi creates sophisticated, smooth art pop brimming with emotion. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 9, 2023