An independent artist creating on Peramangk Country in Adelaide Hills, Anya Anastasia returns after a creative fallow period with her newest single 'Two Halves', which is also the first taste of her upcoming album 'Everspring'.
The follow-up to her 2022 EP 'Dissenter', which was nominated for Best Folk Artist at 2022 South Australian Music Awards, Anya continues to write music that questions modern society especially relating to the natural world.
'Two Halves' explores lyrically the adult filters we impose on ourselves, urging us to shed them to re-kindle the awe, wonder and emotional connection with the natural world we all experience as children – the lyrics 'show me the things that I no longer see, mundane to most is to you ecstasy' paint vivid imagery.
A brisk yet stirring guitar opens the song, its spirited freneticism soothed by Anya's mellow yet stark vocals, a hushness enveloping the song's art-rock, alt. folky tones.
The combo of dusty, heavenly drums and a tranquil yet spritely bassline builds the groove further, before the drums' pace quickens to fever-point, Anya's voice possessed by a Nordic-Viking spirit, a mollifying energy congealing to a fierce shield maiden soul.
By the time the track explodes in its final moments, the intense emotional release is palpable, the song's tangible aspect engulfing, almost goosebump-inducing, a blanketing fervour left in its wake.
"I meticulously craft and layer my music, intended as hymns of awe at the monumental power of the natural world to which we all belong and are shaped by," Anya says.
"Our relationship with nature is so bizarrely distorted and fractured by modern society. I try to capture and reflect that too, in order to smash it apart, and remember the things I instinctively knew when I was young, yet somehow forgot."
Ahead of the song's release tomorrow (20 November), today scenestr is delighted to premiere 'Two Halves'. Enjoy.
Delivered by a powerhouse all-femme production team, Anya self-produced and recorded much of the track in her home-studio with additional mixing and engineering by Lucinda Machin (The Tullamarines), and Katie Tavini (Marika Hackman, Nadine Shah, Bloc Party) mastering the track.
If you like Björk, Radiohead, and PJ Harvey, or staring at orchids on bushwalks you'll get a kick out of 'Two Halves'. "I love watching the way kids discover and interact with the world," shares Anya.
"The feelings are so raw and immediate and visceral. Their way of being in the world is so direct, so involved, so connected. Thinking about this gives me this strange feeling of nostalgia and loss, conscious that the filters and layers of adulthood have removed me from something vital and important.
"I wrote this song to try to smash apart those layers and retrieve a bit of what was lost in the process of 'growing up'."
Tomorrow, Anya will launch 'Two Halves' with a hometown show at The Grace Emily. "As a composer and producer, I'm so fascinated by the possibilities of curating sounds in order to paint the subject matter and mood of the song, but also the textures of the landscape where the song has been inspired and brought to life.
"I really enjoyed taking time to delve for the right sorts of sounds to build atmosphere and tension in this song. At one point we played a cello through a Marshall stack outside in the wilderness, capturing the squealing, droning, unpredictable mayhem of that sound along with the serene soundscape of the forest and field around us.
"You can still hear a small frog at the end of the track from that take! Back in the studio we also sent melodic lines of big resonant instruments through things like a vintage drive-in speaker for some delicate papery vintage strings sounds that still maintain some presence, and we used rich dark ribbon mics in a big room to give great depth to the drum sound where the track needed to get truly expansive.
"So much thought (and tinkering) went into crafting something unique, that is not only in service of the song but also the land, the unceded sovereign lands of the Peramangk people, here in the Adelaide Hills which continues to inspire and inform my music."
With her debut album 'Everspring' due in 2026, Anya is excited at what the coming months will entail. "Sonically lush and thronging with life, 'Everspring' is intended as a gift of abundance that celebrates the natural world, cautioning harshly against our destruction and disconnect from it.
"It also explores the way my recent experience of becoming a mother has deepened my sense of belonging to the natural world."
Anya Anastasia 2025-2026 Tour Dates
Thu 20 Nov - Grace Emily (Adelaide)
Thu 19 Feb - The Wheatsheaf Hotel (Adelaide)
27 Feb-2 Mar - Nannup Music Festival
