There is something warm and endearing about this album by Anna Coogan and Daniele Fiaschi. It sounds almost natural with nothing more than a minimal, and entirely appropriate, backing of Daniele Fiaschi providing sterling support to Ms Coogan’s intimate tones.
My thoughts were initially taken towards a comparison with Alela Diane by “Red Shoes, Black Dress” with its elegantly downtown country feel. Was that comparison really appropriate though? Perhaps not as Anna Coogan, whilst sounding outwardly like so many an earnest and upwardly mobile female singer in the acoustic universe, is possessed of a rare ability to relax the most troubled soul. I felt somewhat haunted yet simultaneously calmed by “Streamers” and indeed by “How Will You Find Me?”. That’s a most unusual thing for a battle hardened reviewer to experience and, in fact, I’d be hard pressed to remember the last time that it happened to me.
Rather curiously, a live cover of Phil Och’s “Crucifixion” rounds off “The Nowhere, Rome Sessions”. Pulling a prime song from the catalogue of a sixties protest singer seems at odds to her own words and style but, and this is the mark of a proper singer, Anna Coogan neatly and confidently turns the song into a textbook example of melodramatic suffering. Anna Coogan is likely to steal your heart with this album. You have been warned.