Indie artist Anna Erhard inspired by British comedy

After a sold-out UK tour in autumn 2024, Berlin-based, Swiss-born musician Anna Erhard is coming back to do some spring dates – and Cambridge is one of them.

Anna released her third album, Botanical Garden, in September last year, and I suggested she might want to visit the Cambridge University Botanic Garden while she’s here.

“Nice,” she laughs, “people have been suggesting me botanical gardens all over England now!

“It would be very nice to always go, but unless you have a day off, there usually isn’t enough time. But I’m sure England has amazing ones.”

Anna’s gig at Mash in Cambridge in March will be her first time performing in the city, although she has visited, albeit very briefly, before.

“I’m curious how it is,” she says, “it is a very student-y place, I guess? So I’m excited, but I don’t know what to expect apart from that.”

Anna reveals that she spent Christmas and new year in her native Switzerland – in an old mountain-top house in the Alps where her grandmother grew up – and is back making music again, “but not for the tour and in no specific shape yet, just taking my time to create something new, perhaps”.

Her songs, described as “somewhere between the spirit of Kurt Vile and early Beck”, are a mix of distorted guitars and lo-fi keyboards, while a taste for the ridiculous has often found its way into her mischievous lyrics.

Some of that can be traced back to her love of classic British sitcom, Fawlty Towers.

“I used always to watch it with my dad when I was a child, or a teenager perhaps,” recalls Anna, who put out her first solo material in 2019, following the break-up of her previous band, Basel folk collective Serafyn.

“He was really into it, me as well, and once we went on holiday in Cornwall.

“We went with my family, with a big tent and a car, and we also went to Torquay; we went to see the hotel as well – we were very excited! I was really into British comedy when I was younger.”

Anna says the reaction to Botanical Garden has been “super nice – especially in England, somehow, people seemed to enjoy it”.

She adds: “Also, all the shows we played in October, after it was released, it was so nice just to see people already knew the songs. Some were singing along.

“I have this one song, it’s called 170, about me being 170cm tall, and one guy brought this measurement tape and started measuring me during the song.

“I loved it, how people really jumped on these lyrics that I thought ‘Ah, that’s just like a silly joke for myself’.

“But they really picked up on it and it was very cool to see – and that was definitely something that happened only in England.”

Talking of 170, there is a bit of jangly, Johnny Marr feel to the track. Is Anna a fan of The Smiths?

“Yeah, I mean I kind of got to know them a bit later than maybe people in England, I guess,” she says, “I didn’t grow up with them but I really love them.”

Anna released her debut album, Short Cut, in 2021. It was followed in 2022 by Campsite, the title track of which earned praise from the likes of Marc Riley, Steve Lamacq, and Lauren Laverne.

She will be coming to Cambridge, to perform at Mash – accompanied by her bass player and drummer – on Sunday, 16 March.

Tickets, priced £15 in advance, are available from mashcambridge.com. For more on Anna, go to annaerhard.com.