Anya Baghina - "To Be Alone"
Anya Baghina is relatively new to Brooklyn, but her songs fit right in here. The songwriter arrived in town last year by way of Detroit, where she fronted Soviet Girls, a trio influenced by classic indie-rock staples like Yo La Tengo, Beat Happening, and Mazzy Star. She brought a series of pared-down solo tunes along with her to New York, each of which deconstructs feelings of disconnection, loneliness, and sorrow. Today, we’re excited to premiere the final track in this series of singles, “To Be Alone,” and the accompanying music video.
Building on the themes of her first three singles, “To Be Alone” confronts the discomfort and uncertainty of being alone, especially when coping with grief. Having too much time to reflect on the past has the capacity to overwhelm, and when your mind is left to its own devices, it can cycle repeatedly through uncomfortable moments and memories. As Baghina explained, “spending time with yourself can be really difficult because you start to recognize your thoughts and inevitably work through memories and some hard truths.”
Though this admittedly is a challenging process, there are little feelings of resistance on “To Be Alone.” Baghina’s soft, melancholic vocal delivery and willowy guitar playing sound natural and cathartic, as if she’s engaging in an inevitable internal dialogue without reservation. The guitar and her voice ring with solitude, sounding as if they’re bouncing off the walls of an empty room. Her hypnotic fingerpicking has a similarly chilling feel, as it mirrors the recurrent thought processes that are triggered when contact with others is cut off. Recorded live on a four-track cassette deck, the bare bones, DIY nature of the recording further accentuates the feelings of isolation present throughout the song. The decision to record live without any overdubs also has the effect of capturing the feeling of a unique moment in time - one where the emotions are pure, raw, and unfiltered.
The video, which was shot in Baghina’s Bed-Stuy apartment, captures intimate scenes of urban isolation and seclusion with shots of her softly strumming her guitar in her bedroom, bathtub, and on her couch. At times, she’s looking directly into the camera, confronting the range of uncomfortable emotions that come with solitude. Other scenes see her peering down at her guitar, as she reflects within. The video cuts a few times to shots of a blossoming tree soaked with afternoon sunlight, but the view is mostly from a balcony, where the surrounding bars separate her from the outside world.
Baghina originally wrote “To Be Alone” two years ago, but the song and video are strangely prescient of the current reality of life under quarantine during this global pandemic. As many of us are trapped inside our small apartments, completely isolated from friends and loved ones, we’re left with a seemingly endless amount of time to sit and stew within our own heads. Though we may feel helpless and scared, “To Be Alone” reminds us that we’re actually not alone at all.
Stream the video below and check out Anya’s music on Bandcamp and Spotify.
Tune in tomorrow at 6 P.M. on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram for a special live-streamed episode of Look At My Records with Anya. We’ll be chatting, playing music videos, and she’ll be performing a few songs!
