Anna Cordell’s rich folk music straddles that place between light and dark where true human emotion exists. Her penchant for the minor key coupled with her intricate nylon and electric guitar playing and haunting yet uplifting voice make for an incredibly enthralling performance.
Cordell’s music went and lost its priority after she completed university, she had her first daughter at 22 and fell into fashion design after worrying that the pursuit of music would be too difficult.
After 8 years without touching an instrument, finding designing for large corporations 'entertaining but meaningless' Cordell began having her doubts about whether she'd made the right choice. She picked up her grandmothers old nylon guitar to see what might come back to her. To her amazement, a flood of songs came pouring out, and after sharing them to surprised friends who had no idea about her musical past, she decided to try a few quiet shows. The response was more than encouraging, and before long, Cordell had quit fashion and pulled together an impressive collection of musicians to perform with.
Since 2015 Cordell has been performing around Melbourne at venues including The Gasometer, Howler, The Corner Hotel, and the Northcote social club alongside a broad range of artists including LANKS, William Crighton, Rob Snarsky, Leah Senior, Julia Jacklin, and was 'special guest' to both CLARE BOWDTICH and ARCHIE ROACH.
Cordell doesn’t mind a bit of melancholy, which she share with her unusual blend of influences, Nick Drake, Midlake, Joan Baez and Radiohead.
“I love the minor key and unresolved open chords. To me they represent a few things to me: Writing songs in the minor key seems to elicit an unspoken melancholy. And the unresolved open chords are moments asking for resolution. These chords lend themselves to be lead in a new direction. And then eventually this will resolve on a major chord the moment of reprieve, hope, relief,” contends Cordell.
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