Guitarist Anna Coogan to Release Operatic Rock Album 'The Lonely Cry of Space & Time, 4/28

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There have been many attempts at rock opera in the past, but The Lonely Cry of Space & Time is something different. Call it operatic rock, a genre previously explored by the likes of Kate Bush, Jane Siberry, Lene Lovich, Yoko Ono and Freddie Mercury, among others. Coogan studied opera at the prestigious Mozarteum University of Salzburg in Austria, before moving to Seattle, where she worked as a fisheries biologist in Washington State and Alaska, which goes a long way to explaining her frequent use of water as a metaphor. In fact, a drought in the Finger Lakes region of New York where she lived in part was a factor in the immediacy she brought to the new album.

A true independent, Anna releases her own albums and books her own tours, which have taken her all over the world, including international festivals like the Blue Ball in Lucerne, Switzerland, the Maverick in Suffolk, U.K., as well as the Glasgow Americana Festival and Celtic Connections in Scotland. She has also played extensively in Germany and the Netherlands, and toured as a member of the Johnny Dowd Band.

"Oh let the oceans rise/To the shining skies," she sings. "I will burn for you."

On The Lonely Cry of Space & Time, Anna Coogan does just that, providing a shiny ray of hope for a world seemingly bent on self-destruction, deftly weaving the personal and political into a yin-yang hybrid.

"I think the two have been intertwined in me for a long time, since I was a kid" she observes. "And these days, I don't feel as alone in my perception of current events."

And now, neither do we.