Anna Calvi teams up with Matt Berninger for new single ‘Is This All There Is?’
anna calvi has released the title single “Is This All There Is?” featuring Matt Berninger, taken from an EP arriving this Friday, 20th March. The track, originally written for Joanna Hogg’s film The Souvenir Part II, has been reimagined as a duet that layers intimate vocal confrontation over spare, evocative instrumentation. The decision to recast the piece highlights a larger collaborative EP that gathers Laurie Anderson, Iggy Pop and Perfume Genius around a central question of longing and doubt.
Anna Calvi and Matt Berninger: the duet
The new single pairs anna calvi’s expressive delivery with Matt Berninger of The National, their voices interweaving to create tension and intimacy. Built on minimal instrumentation, the arrangement pushes both vocal performances forward, allowing the lyrical question at the song’s core to resonate. The title track was transformed from a film cue into a full duet, with percussion and textural elements giving weight to the exchange between Calvi and Berninger.
Immediate reactions and what the artist says
Anna Calvi framed the record’s central song in emotional terms: “This song is about the bravery it takes to hope, ” she said, adding that the collaboration was born from a shared search for answers. She added that “The tone of Matt’s voice has such an epic, almost ancient quality to it, which felt perfect for a song asking such a big existential question. We’re 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. ” Those remarks underline the artistic choice to foreground voice and sparse textures rather than dense production.
A collaborative EP framed around reimagining
The single previews a four-track EP also titled Is This All There Is? that features collaborations with Laurie Anderson, Iggy Pop and Perfume Genius. The project has been presented not as simple nostalgia but as a series of reworkings and dialogues: one track unites Calvi with Iggy Pop in a raw vocal contrast, another pairs her with Perfume Genius for a fragile chamber-pop reinterpretation, and a collaboration with Laurie Anderson leans into a meeting of electronic and acoustic textures. Across the EP, anna calvi’s guitar work and production create a cinematic backdrop that both frames and challenges her guests.
What’s next
The EP Is This All There Is? arrives this Friday, 20th March, giving listeners the full context for the title track and its companion pieces. With the lead single now out and the record imminent, attention will turn to the other collaborations on the release and how the project reframes material originally tied to film. anna calvi’s reimagining of the piece as a duet with Matt Berninger sets the tone: intimate, confrontational and aimed at the big, uncomfortable questions that run through the EP.
