Interview by F. Amanda Tugade
It took years for Anna Burch to find her rhythm.
For most of her music career, she often described herself as a “backup singer” for the bands she was a part of. She hid behind the walls of the Detroit music scene, gaining exposure to different styles and sounds, but none of them felt completely her own.
In those spaces, Burch understood her place; she called herself an “accessory” and “frivolous,” and she started to become uncomfortable. She longed to create something of her own but fell into a trap of second-guessing herself. Burch began to lose sight of her identity as an artist and a musician and knew she needed a change.
That change came in the form of quitting music entirely and moving to a new city. “I think it was difficult,” Burch says of her move to Chicago. “It was sort of all I knew. I loved performing, but I think the deeper thing nagging me was probably not having any creative stake in the project. I think, like, I really did need to take a step back from performing and being involved in any musical project to kind of—I guess, just like live a little bit. And I did that.”
The end result of that “reset,” she says, is her debut album, Quit the Curse. Released Feb. 2 via Polyvinyl Records, the nine-track album shows the evolution of Burch as she learns to embrace her newfound confidence. Her dreamy, airy voice lends itself to her songs, which are personal stories of growth, wonder, and love.
Quit the Curse—also the title of a track on the album—does not only reveal itself as a “series of romantic mishaps,” Burch says she also likes “the idea of applying it to the work as a whole.” She notes that this solo project felt like the first step into a new beginning. “In a way, I kind of saw it as quitting—quitting the curse of not being creatively productive,” she explains. “I always kind of felt like I wanted to write, I wanted to create, but I never really felt that I had it in me or something.”
Burch gives a nod to the opening track, “2 Cool 2 Care,” which kicked off her songwriting. “I think, maybe, I had two songs under my belt,” she says. “I guess, when I sat down to write about it, I was feeling particularly ambitious to write a song that was sort of, maybe more of an impressive structure, and yeah, that song felt like a puzzle to put together. It got away from me for a minute, it felt sort of unruly for a second—like, the bridge of the song is really long. I was feeling like I didn’t know how to come back from it.”
But she found a way to tailor “2 Cool 2 Care” to fit her aesthetic, and from there, the rest flowed naturally. As a whole, Burch says Quit the Curse is her step toward the spotlight, a direct reflection of her work that stands alongside her name and her brand.
Even more than that, it is a statement. “I think Quit the Curse applies to just being able to quit all the self-doubt and just, yeah, take charge,” Burch says.
