Anna Coddington "Luck - Time" 2016

...Since Anna Coddington’s last album as a solo artist in 2016, her work has been characterised by avid collaboration. Alongside her electronica project Clicks with partner Dick Johnson, Coddington has performed with the Blackbird Ensemble, Fly My Pretties, the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and Eru Dangerspiel – to name a few...
..."[Collaboration] is something I've been building into confidence-wise,” she told RNZ’s Sunday Morning in 2018. “When I started out, especially because I was self-taught… [I] felt like I was always muddling my way through, I didn't have a lot of confidence to collaborate… Now I feel it’s the thing I want to do most.”
2020 was another significant year for Coddington’s co-creation, with her composing for local TV show Head High and being a driving force behind ‘Tūtahi – Stay’, a lockdown charity single featuring a who’s who of New Zealand recording artists.
And of course Coddington’s moving performance with the Wha Cups at the 2020 APRA Silver Scroll must be mentioned. Alongside Anika Moa, Julia Deans, Tali, Hollie Smith and Lauren Barus (aka L A Mitchell), the group performed an a capella version of Weta’s ‘Calling On’, to honour the life of Aaron Tokona, who died in 2020. Coddington posted the performance video onto social media, on October 29, with a special note: “It was Aaron’s birthday yesterday! So extra special to watch this back and be able to cry the tears I had to hold back while we performed it.”
Much as she loves working with her friends and peers, it was actually the last four years of collaboration that inspired Coddington to write a new solo album. Beams was released November 2020, and she describes it as an exercise in “ruthless self-expression”.
Ahead of the album release she told Newstalk ZB that traditional pop songwriting was at times disregarded so that she could “say what I wanted to say”. Coddington says the key themes to inspire Beams were parenthood, whakapapa and identity – all present on the first single ‘The Saint (with stains)’. “We all wear many hats and for me, the album has been a process of … exploring how I wear those different hats, manage those different identities.”
Beams is Coddington’s first album not to be self-produced, with the Silver Scroll winning duo behind LIPS – Steph Brown and Fen Ikner – taking on the role. The pair undoubtedly bring their pop-electronica influence to the work, but Beams is inherently an indie album. “I really wanted the songs to stand up in their original form, which was guitar and vocals,” she told Newstalk ZB. “That was one important thing, that the songwriting was strong enough that they could exist only with that.”
The album brings another first for Coddington: a duet. The title track features soul singer Louis Baker in what Under The Radar calls “a power ballad”. The new material is showcased as part of her Test the Waters tour, on the national circuit in November 2020. - AudioCulture Update by Rosie Howells, November 2020

trax:
01 Bird In Hand 02 Release Me 03 Apples 04 Falling Fast 05 Lantern 06 Luck-Time 07 Make You Mine 08 Till the Leaves Fall Down 09 The Runner 10 Too Far Gone 11 Without a Fight 12 Run with You
…served by Gaius…