As the seasons change, the air gets warmer, and birds begin to arrive back from the north, Anika Moa returns with her third and most complete album to date, In Swings The Tide. Released on October 8th through EMI records, those who know Anika will be further intrigued, those who have not yet come across this 27 year old singer songwriter, soon will. 

There isn’t a voice like hers anywhere. Honest and heart wrenching with an underlying soul and energy that complements the songs she writes. You may have seen the cheeky grin. It gives a small insight into the persona behind it, and the music she has made for the best part of the last decade.

In Swings The Tide is her latest offering. It takes one listen through to realise it is an album that she has poured all of her creative energies into. Featuring the new single Dreams In My Head, the sound of Anika Moa is the sound of one of New Zealand’s best loved troubadours, and one who speaks from the truth of her experiences.

“I think that as a musician you always strive to do better than the last album and to grow and develop as a writer, as a singer, as a… well, everything. This third album is a more mature and more developed me.”

“It’s the best one yet. I say that without being modest. It’s the best album I have ever done. I think it’s very commercial…Could shift a few units!” she raises her eyebrows suggestively and laughs, “It is the real me though. Every single word that I say from start to end is what happened in my life and what is happening in my life so it’s an ongoing thing. A lot of people try and cover up who they are and cover up what they are but I’m learning that I shouldn’t do that, I should just be me, warts and all.”

Back then, way back then, she emerged from high school, then adoration from Smokefree Rockquest crowds and judges, and then Anika Moa became the first New Zealander signed to an international record label without releasing anything first at home. Atlantic Records flew her to New York in 2000 at the age of 19 to record her debut ‘Thinking Room’ with highly reputed producer Victor Van Vugt (PJ Harvey, Nick Cave). Anika’s strong will and desire to stay true to herself and her musical path caused her to choose a life that involved forging her career at home instead of an overworked American touring schedule which would keep her on the road for two years solid. She split amicably with Atlantic Records in 2002, and back in New Zealand ‘Thinking Room’ had already taken out the top spot in the national album chart, going on to sell over double-platinum.

Seven years on of living, loving and learning and with a title referring to love that comes and goes and the ever changing way the world works, Anika has penned some of her most achingly sad yet uniquely uplifting songs on In Swings The Tide.
It has been a strange and challenging time since her second album Stolen Hill was released in 2005. With an emotional torrent of feelings caused by a breakup, her Dad getting sick and mixed feeling toward her sophomore album, which had a more political and grittier approach than Thinking Room, Anika has come out the other side with that super smile firmly planted on her dial.
“Usually I’m spritely and feeling good about life. I’m really excited about the future. It’s funny how things change and you don’t know what’s going to happen next. But at this point, I am so proud of this album. It’s huge! It’s a huge sound. It’s funny, some of the songs are depressing, ‘My Old Man’ is about my dad and some hard times we are going through and ‘The Blind Woman’ is about this terribly broken heart but it’s just so happy because there is hope in it. It’s surprisingly uplifting.”

Recorded at Anika’s Auckland home in 2006 seven days before Christmas and ten days later on in May 2007, the sessions were originally planned as a chance for Anika to record some demos. But in swung the tide and things changed, even down to Anika self producing her own album for the first time.

“I started the process I was meant to be recording demos for maybe, possibly recording an album, and when we started with Andre Upston (engineer and mixer) and the band at my house it just sounded so good that really I accidentally fell into producing it myself because I just got stuck in straight away and I figured out that I could do it”
Anika engaged her favourite live musicians, including drummer Nick Gaffeney, Chip Matthews on bass, keyboardist Steph Brown and guitarist Neil Watson for the album sessions. Tim Guy and Anna Coddington add backing vocals to a number of songs. Adding a new dimension to the album, colleague and friend, Bruce Lynch (Cat Stevens) was called in to arrange orchestral parts for the album. The scores were realised by members of the Auckland Philharmonic Orchestra at Eden Post Audio.
Although her trademark sound is still apparent, and that beautiful voice as present as ever, the flavour of her songs have evolved. A mixture of pop sensibilities with a country swing and spring amongst her wondrous melodies, the music speaks for itself.
“I was listening to a lot of country. Johnny Cash, Gillian Welch, Jolie Holland, Lucinda Williams. I’m constantly listening to music and that reflects. When I did Thinking Room I was listening to pop, it was a pop record. The second one I was listening to Billie Holiday, Neil Young, some jazzier and bluesier stuff, and Stolen Hill followed that path a bit more, and this one? Country. Yeah I guess so.”
She recently supported alt country bad boy Ryan Adams in two sold out Auckland shows to a huge response from a crowd she thought may not have received her well. Adams himself was transfixed by Anika’s music and left hand style of playing the guitar upside down.
She is a unique lady. Her enthusiasm bubbles and you feel that a joke or a smart remark could be in the next sentence. And to think, music almost lost her to sports.
“Music has always been my one true love. But I’ve always said that it’s a hobby that’s turned into a career. I wanted to be a rugby player”, she laughs keeling over in her seat
“I was a flanker. I played for Canterbury for years, I’m pretty proud of that. But I chose music. Being a musician’s awesome.”
Lucky for us she thinks so.
“I’ve always tried to fight the system, whether that be record companies or whoever. This time I have learnt, you grow with age, and I have learnt how to respect people and compromise and just be a nice well rounded person. I also have lots of control over my music now and I have lots of control over my feelings, and I know how I want to be portrayed and what I want as a musician.”

Like in the words of her own song ‘this year has been hard’, from the smile on her dial you couldn’t tell a thing. Love comes and goes, seasons pass, and just after it has gone out again, In Swings The Tide.