Daneshevskaya

Today, Daneshevskaya (pronounced Dawn-eh-shev-sky-uh) announces Long Is The Tunnel, her Winspear debut out November 10th, and presents its lead single and video, “Big Bird.” Daneshevskaya is the project of Anna Beckerman — a Brooklyn-based preschool social worker by day — who writes songs steeped in the folklore of her own personal history. Written over a period of years beginning in 2017, the seven gleaming songs on Long Is The Tunnel each sound like a world within themselves, pairing twisted-up classical structures with distinctive metaphors that are both otherworldly and grounding. Co-produced by Ruben Radlauer of Model/Actriz, Hayden Ticehurst, and Artur Szerejko, Long Is The Tunnel also features contributions from Lewis Evans of Black Country, New Road, who Beckerman is currently supporting on tour in North America, including shows this week in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Following the previously shared “Somewhere In The Middle,” lead single “Big Bird” distills Daneshevskaya’s distinctive sound in under three minutes. Beginning with just Beckerman’s voice and an arpeggiated piano chord, “Big Bird” wastes no time bursting into blown-out production. “The biggest bird I’ve ever seen // landed right in front of me,” Beckerman sings, cutting through layers of percussion, synth, and guitar. “I don’t know what the reason was // I can’t tell a dove from the biggest bird I’ve ever seen,” she continues, looping the song’s chorus into an endless earworm.

“I wrote ‘Big Bird’ on GarageBand on my phone,” Beckerman says. “It automatically loops when you use it on your phone so the song ended up being a loop. When I showed the demo to Artur, Ruben, and Hayden, I said we could turn it into a full song but they were into the loop. The lyrics are about when a big bird swoops down and everyone in the area stops to look at it together. I like moments like that where everyone is childlike and curious.”

Beckerman grew up in a musical family; her father is a music professor, her mother studied opera, and her brothers played various instruments. She learned piano from her father’s grad students. “The fun part of music is connecting with people, that’s how I was raised,” Beckerman says. Before experimenting with writing her own music, Beckerman would sing the prayers she was taught attending synagogue. Her own songs often feel spiritual, less so by any religious connotation and more as a hymn-like, archival record of Beckerman’s own past, present and future.

A life-long New York City resident, Beckerman’s recording moniker (and real life middle name) comes from her Russian-Jewish great-grandmother, a person whose presence has always been felt although their paths never crossed in real life. Both her grandparents passed away while Beckerman wrote the songs that make up Long Is The Tunnel, and as much as stories about her grandmother — a poet and teacher — feel like “a version of me in the past,” they ignited a burning curiosity to color in the lines of where Beckerman came from. She often re-read her grandmother’s letters, which “conveyed longing in such a subtle and satisfying, realistic way,” a sentiment that can be applied to Beckerman’s own music.

While her debut EP Bury Your Horses stitched together the fixed points and mysteries of human connection, Long Is The Tunnel contemplates how the people you meet impact the pathway you travel. The somber melancholy of her love songs are often more manifestations to her internal self than anyone else. What she’s really seeking is the independence of a healthy relationship, or she explains: “we’re not gonna belong to each other, but we’ll share this life.”

Long Is The Tunnel paints a distinctive collage between traditional songwriting and modern turns of phrase that remain spellbound in the unadulterated luster of self discovery.

Long Is The Tunnel is available for digital and physical pre-order now, including Blood Red Vinyl.