Anna doesn’t paint – she writes poetry, sings, composes and plays. The result: currygelb – the debut album of the singer-songwriter with Ruhr region roots and Oldenburg persistence.
The multi-instrumentalist (violin, viola, guitar, piano) and singer spent four years writing, tinkering, recording, discarding, and reproducing to capture eleven gems of her work on this first album. The lyrics are always surprising, sometimes confusing, yet always authentic, and ten of the eleven songs are in German. Each word is lovingly crafted, and all the words together encompass large parts of human existence. Her stories, presented across genres, revolve around death, friendship, love, the speed of life, and even curry-yellow shirts.
Together with Malik Schilling (percussion) and Pädda Reckzeh (electric bass, double bass), she has wrapped her stories in small, sometimes minimalist musical pieces, stylistically spanning a wide range from pop, jazz, and blues to classic singer-songwriter styles, with some rock influences and touches of the Middle East. Guests include pianist David K. Ehlers and guitarist Heere Junker, each adding small highlights.
In her booklet, Anna writes:
"We recorded the first songs in the fall of 2017, and then I reworked them all—writing new ones, rewriting the lyrics, and re-recording them. So much has happened in the four years since then—there would have been a thousand reasons never to finish this album. But we did it [...] Thank you, pandemic, for giving us space. Without the first lockdown, we probably would never have finished.
[…] my corduroy shirt is curry yellow, and it's been a great journey so far. We hope you hear that."
Anna Reckzeh (born 2002) spent the first three years of her life growing up in Bochum, a city in the Ruhr region, before migrating with her parents to the Oldenburg Münsterland region—her home, however, still lies somewhere between the Ruhr Valley and the Rhineland. Her musical journey began at a young age in her parents' home, where music was a constant. At just under four years of age, she developed the desire to learn the violin. After seven years of lessons at the local music school, she transferred to the gifted program at the Osnabrück Music School and is now studying classical violin, music education, and jazz singing at the Osnabrück Institute of Music (IfM). Her musical versatility and versatility have made her a welcome guest in studio productions and live performances. The award winner of the Berlin Festival's Treffen junge Musik-Szene (2017) expands her musical horizons both in the workshops and masterclasses of the Morgenland Festival Osnabrück and currently at operationderkuenste in Berlin (2021). A musician's existence detached from a fixed genre or musical style is a great dream of the artist, according to which she orients her musical and non-musical activities.