Start Listening To: Ann Liu Cannon

Ann Liu Cannon explores grief, folklore and the architecture of identity on her poetic and richly textured debut, Clever Rabbits.

Ann Liu Cannon’s Clever Rabbits is an album rooted in personal history, cultural symbol, and sonic curiosity. Drawing from a wide palette that stretches from 70s folk to synth pop, the record maps a coming-of-age journey through grief, heritage and creative discovery. Born in Wiltshire and now based in London, Ann has carved out a singular space as both artist and label founder, threading together English countryside mythology, Chinese idioms and a vivid emotional world that feels deeply lived-in. We caught up with her to talk about rabbit emblems, Mellotrons, loss and legacy.

For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?

My name is Ann Liu Cannon, I grew up in Wiltshire and now living in London, and I make 70s folk revival singer-songwriter stuff, but also make synth pop, depending on the weather. 

Clever Rabbits is such a rich and layered debut. Can you tell us about the moment the idea for the album first began to take shape?

It happened when l played all of my songs to Ethan. They were all written from when I was 18 to 21-ish. He chose what went in. I didn’t see the trajectory until he placed them in that order, and when I sat down and listened through, I realised there was a story. He saw it before I did.

The idiom 狡兔三窟 (Clever rabbits need three burrows) plays such a central role in the album's concept. What first drew you to that symbol, and how did it shape your approach to writing?

My dad worked in art history so knew a lot about churches and stuff, and he told me about the symbol of the three hares with their ears intertwined. It appears in churches in Dartmoor, across Europe, and in caves in Eastern China. My mum piped up and said there’s also an idiom in Chinese that references this triad. My dad grew up in London and Devon, and my mum in China, and I’m a rabbit under the Chinese lunar calendar. It was a moment of identification with something ineffable at the core of my exploration of my experience at the time. When I could see the story that Ethan had found, Clever Rabbits as a phrase was the sum of all the parts, so it became the album title. But I only really wrote the song Clever Rabbits because I wanted to play Friday nights at Spiritual Bar, and to do that I had to play upbeat songs and I didn’t have any. 

You’ve described the rabbit as your mixed-race emblem, but the album also explores breaking away from even that third burrow. Where did that questioning take you emotionally?

A scary place of relief. 

The sonic palette of the album is so diverse, from folk to orchestral to digital soundscapes. How did you approach arranging these shifts in style while still keeping everything cohesive?  

Anytime we wanted a new element it had to be accessible to what Ethan or I had to hand already, and Ethan happened to have a Mellotron, which is awesome, and the ultimate marriage of real sound with a digital edge.  There wasn’t any pre-production or indeed many rules, besides my rule that there be no lap steel, and there was a general sense that each song had an entirely different approach, but we wouldn’t know until the day came. The live takes were similar, without any rehearsal. A new concept for me at the time! My demos were also kept largely the same, recorded in my room with a completely different setup and mic choices, but we knew we just had to follow whatever the song wanted. It’s what lead us on a spontaneous trip to a long barrow to sing vocals in, or had me sampling my grandfather's clock, or had us reaching for omnichords and banjo samples. So I think it’s the attitude that tied everything together as cohesive. That, and the Mellotron.

You worked with Ethan Johns, whose work with artists like Laura Marling and Paul McCartney is legendary. What did that collaboration bring out in you?

Yes, incredible, right? My father introduced the albums he worked on to me when I was 10 and they became essential to me. You know when you’re a teenager and an album becomes your entire identity, your whole existence? That kind of essential. When I got the call all those years later and it was him, and my father was dying, it felt like a circle closing. In the studio, sometimes I felt like a student with the ultimate teacher, but most of the time it felt like two chatting rabbits with a shared horizon, searching around in the dark with a flashlight, finding things that reflected, and weaving them together with a lot of care.

“No You Don’t” feels like the emotional core of the record, a tender, aching ballad. What was the story behind writing that song?

This is the oldest song on the record. I was very young and easily heartbroken. I told someone I loved them and I really meant it and they told me I was wrong, because we hadn’t known each other for very long. I felt like I had been completely erased, taken out under a tide. Most of this album is me being young and dramatic. Not much has changed. Over time, I would grow into the words. They would haunt me at various points. 

You’ve talked about the passing of your father and its impact on your work. How did grief influence the emotional terrain of Clever Rabbits?

The day that he died we were arranging the final parts of Movement of Standing Stones. When I got the call to come home, Ethan grabbed my shoulders and gave me some solid and comforting advice on how to face the night ahead. That bass line was ringing in my head the whole time he was dying. I went back to the studio a couple of weeks later and there wasn’t a distinctive before and after, only time becoming muddy in shock. I remember it was spring and we were nearly finished with the record. Grief just got in the way, like someone was quietly removing small amounts of oxygen in the room. It was hard to focus. Now it’s released it feels like the end again, but a very clear beginning, a hopeful one, which is nice. I’m present, I’m here, there is a before and an after.

Founding JJ Records feels like both a tribute and a bold act of independence. What does starting your own label mean to you, and how do you see it evolving?

It means I can help my friends. Getting to know the dry side of music means I can teach it to people who find it confusing or who think it’s inaccessible, and empower them to self-release, as I did. Place and history ground us to better appreciate and find more layers of depth and beauty in the present, which is the legacy of my father. Emails ground us to better appreciate singing in a rainy open air stage in a muddy field to a handful of kids and bored parents. It has to start with place. My career started in a school lunchtime concert, in a record store in Marlborough, in a chaotic bar in Camden Town. Our lives are more meaningful when we know our story, a song is more moving when it has context, a record label can provide more from a place. Thomaz (My manager and co-founder of JJ Records) and I are hoping for it to evolve around a church that can act as a studio, writing, rehearsal, kind of gathering place. We’re on the lookout, if anyone has a spare church lying around.

Place and architecture seem central to your world - both musically and spiritually. What role does space play in your songwriting?

I touched on it before, but context is everything. To ourselves, to every situation we see, or interact with. The same goes for songwriting.

Your songs often feel like modern folklore. Are there particular stories, sacred texts, or traditions that you return to for inspiration?

Thank you. What a nice thing to say. Yes, the Bible, Alan Garner’s Collected Folk Tales, Jung, my diary, brushing my teeth.

Clever Rabbits is deeply personal but also full of archetypes and symbols. How do you balance intimacy with abstraction in your lyrics?

Precariously.

What do you love right now?

Salted Butter! Affordable rehearsal rooms! Raw garlic!

What do you hate right now?

Have you seen the news?

Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?

Joanna Newsom, YS. I had really bad period pains the other day and my friend lay me in the back of his car and drove me around with that album playing from start to finish; I was 5 and I was in the kitchen washing up, soap bubbles all down my front and arms, my dad and sister yapping away, and Monkey and Bear blasting from our small beloved CD player. I could not have been happier in either of those moments.

Now that the album is about to be released, how do you feel looking back at this version of yourself captured in these songs?

She was trying to figure some things out and she didn’t realise it was all going to be okay.