ANNA CALVI listens to "Is This All There Is?" with Matt Berninger

Anna-Calvi-and-Matt-Berninger-photo-credit-Emma-Nathan-2026

Anna Calvi returns with an EP “Is This All There Is?”, which features the collaboration of Laurie Anderson, Iggy Pop, Perfume Genius and Matt Berninger of The National.

The track that gives the EP its title precedes the album, the poignant piece with Berninger showcases Anna's exceptional vocal mastery as their voices intertwine and alternate.

Originally written for Joanna Hogg's film The Souvenir Part II but never released, Calvi asked Berninger to join her in creating a new version.
The song becomes a hymn to courage, the courage to believe that there can be something more.

This song is about the courage it takes to hope,” says Calvi.

It's the willingness to ask questions, even when you know you'll never get a definitive answer.”

Speaking further about the collaboration with Berninger, Calvi adds:

The tone of Matt's voice has such an epic, almost ancient quality to it that it seemed perfect for a song that asks such a big existential question. We are both searching for answers, together and yet somehow always apart, which I find beautiful. He brings an intimacy to the song that I couldn't have imagined.”

War Child's HELP(2) album was released earlier this month, featuring Calvi's contributions with Wolf Alice's Ellie Rowsell, Nilüfer Yanya and Dove Ellis.

Is This All There Is? is the first chapter of a trilogy of records that explores identity as a metamorphosis, shaped and reshaped through the experience of falling in love. The idea was born from the change in perspective Calvi experienced after becoming a parent. On the EP, Calvi dives into existential questions about contemporary life: how can we recover intimacy? Is there something more basic that we can reconnect to? What does it mean to feel truly aware?

Having a child was so transformative that it made me consider the possibility that everything in life could change, and that is scary but incredibly liberating. I no longer wanted to take anything for granted. I want to exist in the best way possible for my son. I wanted to ask myself the most fundamental human question: is that all there is to it?”.

In the EP Calvi also reinterprets the Kraftwerk classic Computer Love together with Laurie Anderson. With Anderson's iconic voice at its center and Calvi's haunting, choral arrangements creating space and shadow, the song becomes a reflection on digital intimacy and emotional absence. Following her work as a composer for Peaky Blinders and writing an opera with visionary director Robert Wilson, the new EP presents itself as a cinematic soundscape, the narrative arc of a four-song film populated by vivid characters.

Composing the music for the last two seasons of Peaky Blinders has really changed the way I create music. I've always imagined my songs as little films, but with this EP I wanted to explore a narrative that could exist through all the songs.”

Calvi has always surrounded himself with artists who operate on the margins of genres and expectations. In the past he has collaborated with David Byrne, Brian Eno, Marianne Faithfull, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Courtney Barnett and Julia Holter, all artists following extraordinary creative paths.

The ability to be in the same space with people you love is incredibly inspiring,” she says. «Seeing how different people deal with the same thing makes you sharper. It's exhilarating.”

The collaborators on this EP — Iggy Pop, Laurie Anderson, Perfume Genius and Matt Berninger — all share a unique vision. “They share a sort of subversive honesty,” observes Calvi.

They don't try to please anyone. They express exactly what they are.” In Is This All There Is? their voices become characters in the story, actors in the world that Calvi is creating.

With her three albums released to date, each an essay steeped in darkness, turbulence and drama, Anna Calvi has been shortlisted three times for the Mercury Music Prize, nominated for a BRIT Award, lauded by leading critics and established as an artist fearless in exploring identity and passion. With Is This All There Is? and what will follow in the trilogy, Anna Calvi intends to dig even deeper into the human condition, concluding thus:

I love creating cinema through pure sound. The more I explore, the more curious I become. I want to see how far I can go, and I always find myself wondering: is that all there is to it?”

Additionally, Calvi will release a new song on War Child's collaborative album HELP(2), out March 6. Sunday Light also features Ellie Rowsell of Wolf Alice, Nilüfer Yanya and Dove Ellis.

Anna Calvi continues to write on her Substack newsletter Carving Silver In Strange Weather – you can read the second chapter of The Art of The Duet series here.

THE TRACKLIST

God's Lonely Man (feat. Iggy Pop)
I See A Darkness (feat. Perfume Genius)
Computer Love (feat. Laurie Anderson)
Is This All There Is? (feat. Matt Berninger)