BIO:
Beautifully crafted and quietly unsettling, Anna Coogan’s new release The Wasted Ocean places her incomparable voice front and center. Driving banjos, soaring guitars, and swelling strings fuse Coogan’s indie-pop sensibilities with her Americana roots. Coogan’s most complex and engaging work to date, The Wasted Ocean is produced by Evan Brubaker and features Eyvind Kang (Bill Frisell, Laura Viers), Edie Carey, (Shawn Mullins) Darrin Watkins (Vicki Martinez), and Colby Sander (Rachel Harrington), as well as long time collaborators Eric Hastings, Brooks Miner, and Daniele Fiaschi.
The Wasted Ocean was inspired by a childhood immersed in the musical traditions of maritime New England, as well as years spent on water, first as a whitewater kayaker and then as a fisheries biologist. The evocative imagery woven throughout The Wasted Ocean alternates between joyous and melancholy: streamers lifting in the western wind, Spanish flags and conquistadors haunting the ocean floor, threadbare sails and nets forever left to dry, lust and longing so powerful it could turn the tide.
Described by Maverick Magazine as “Americana at its best” and staunchly declared “one of the best of her breed” by Blurt magazine, Anna has been carving out a niche for herself with multiple tours across the US, UK, and Europe. In the last two years, she has played the Blue Balls Festival (Switzerland), Celtic Connections (UK), Belladrum (UK), along with Seattle’s Tractor Tavern and Triple Door, Portland’s Aladdin Theater, Boston’s Club Passim and many others. She has been featured live in-studio on the BBC and Seattle tastemaker station KEXP, and shared the stages with such diverse luminaries as Alison Brown, Reamonn, Carrie Newcomer, Fred Eaglesmith, and many more. Her 2010 release The Nocturnal Among Us, was produced by acclaimed producer JD Foster (Laura Cantrell, Richard Buckner) and debuted at #1 on the Euro-Americana charts.
The Wasted Ocean will be released on September 26 in the UK and Europe, almost ten years to the day that Coogan walked away from a promising career singing opera. By now not even a trace of classical training remains in her voice. What has emerged in the intervening years is wholly different- more fragile, plaintive, and pure- it is, in the words of The Missoulian (Montana): “touched by twang, drenched in sunshine.” The sunshine certainly shines through on this powerful new collection of material.
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"Based on her powerful pipes and the catch in her throat, she could just as easily pass for a native of Nashville..." -The Stranger
"She ranks one of the best of her breed"-Blurt Magazine
“4 stars...Fantastic new music....Americana at it's best!”
— Maverick Magazine
"An incredible songwriter and performer....I'm a big fan now!"
Barnes Newberry - WUMB (Jul 10, 2010)
"Coogan's voice brings to mind the sweet but striking approach of Kelly Willis and Iris Dement."- No Depression Magazine
"Coogan's voice-well honed, sharpened tool that it is-slaloms between cues from Rosanne Cash and Alison Krauss, taking fuel from the formers grit and the latter's sweet soul....rises above the throng of local folksingers in Seattles alt-country scene."- Seattle Sound magazine
“Her voice swoops and soars as she wraps herself around each lyric. Each melody is laced with dug-down deep poetry.” – Portland Oregonian
"Coogan's songs deal eloquently with the wonderings and soggy wanderings that come with a young adulthood spent in the Pacific Northwest....but Coogan embraces the silver lining offerered by the clouds, ultimately making for hopeful songs." - Missoula Independent
"Coogan's voice slides from note to note without ever slipping. "- Seattle PI
"Her music is the Truth"- Fred Eaglesmith
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