Anna Michaels is not the Toni Morrison-kind of poet I can’t get into. Rather, she has the power of a street storyteller, the sort of person who you can engage at a New York or Los Angeles coffee shop talking about her experiences across the world, her observations of American life both as a local and a foreigner in some sense, and at her best, her words can be rather spellbinding. She is the sort of person I would utterly enjoy a coffee with.
It’s quite a treat to know that she has paired up with Yordan Kostov’s band, one of the many talented groups working out of Skopje, (Northern) Macedonia, my second home town. The band give a sort of ‘beat’ feeling soundtrack to Anna’s wordplay, and the album gels together well. PMG Records should be commended for continually producing fine jazz.