Anna van Riel’s music career by now spans more than two decades, but having spent the past 10 years or so focused on recording children’s music, along with writing and performing an environmental rock opera for kids, it’s been a long while since the release of her last adult album ‘Whistle and Hum’. With the late-January release of her diverse new alt folk album ‘Wooden Leg’, and backed by The Back Road Revolution band, the Invercargill-born singer-songwriter is making a strong return in 2026.

There’s nothing at all wooden about Anna van Riel. On the contrary she’s animated and vibrant, irrepressible even – so asking about her new album’s rather odd title seems a good place to start. ‘Wooden Leg’ apparently takes its name from the closing track, but still, it’s an odd name for an album right? She laughs happily at the observation.

“You know what, I don’t know why. I just kind of felt into it! I was a bit of a psychedelic teenager and I loved Jefferson Airplane, and in particular the song Wooden Ships, which they wrote with Crosby and Stills. I had Jefferson Airplane on vinyl and I just absolutely loved it. I remember when I wore the record out I got it on cassette tape, and I wore that out as well! The song didn’t come from that, but, yeah, I was trying to choose an album name, and it just felt right!”

Anna looks back 30 years to her early teenage self in the album’s opening track 14 Years, to a period in which she proved to herself that there are few barriers in life she couldn’t find a way to clamber over.

14 Years, is, she describes, about being a slightly psychedelic teenager, and probably her favourite among the album’s 11 tracks.

“It’s kind of psychedelic folk, and it was very inspired by Wooden Ships and that whole album, which I think was ‘The Best of Jefferson Airplane’. I’ve been collecting vinyl since I was about that age.

“But yeah, when I was 14 my mum and dad had broken up. I moved to live with my dad and two brothers in central Otago, in a little village called Luggate, which is just near Wanaka. My parents were super young, so he was only in his early 30s when he had this teenage daughter come to live with him, and we lived rurally. I was just kind of coming into my own, so it was quite an interesting time!”

She’d bike to get around, or hitchhike, often with her Labrador along for the ride, and says she spent a lot of time roaming the hills alone.

“A lot of firsts happened in that year, in my 14th year. My brothers took me to a lot of parties, and I probably got up to the kind of mischief that, you know… my daughter’s 14 now, and there’s no way I would let her do what I was back then!”

Remarkably ‘Wooden Leg’ is her seventh album, but it’s now almost 14 years since the release of ‘Whistle and Hum’, the Anna van Riel album many will remember her name from. It saw her competing against Marion Burns and Kaylee Bell (winner) for the 2014 NZ Music Awards Country album Tui award.

For a decade since then her musical output has been focused on children’s music, in line with the progress of her own mothering of two kids, moving on from preschool tunes to more grown-up primary school-age themes. Alongside two successful kids’ albums and other collaborations, she has also written (and recorded) a classroom/stage show, an ‘80s-inspired environmental rock opera titled ‘Waste Free Wanda’, for primary to intermediate age kids. It’s a kind of one-woman collaborative show which she has presented to over 20,000 southern region tamariki, teaching kaitiaki for Papatūānuku in classrooms through the use of theatre and song.

Drawing on her own experience with loss of her singing voice after a traumatic birthing experience, Anna has also become an established vocal coach, providing coaching and mentoring services from individuals and artists through to corporate groups.

As a folk-based singer-songwriter Anna was always a bit surprised with ‘Whistle and Hum’ attracting the ‘country’ label. ‘Wooden Leg’ arrives tagged much more widely as (psychedelic) folk, jazz, country, blues, pop and even alternative rock.

Asked what led this return to recording her fourth album for adult listeners she references Mirrors Audio (Wanaka) studio owner Danny Fairley, her long time recording engineer and co-producer. Fairley recorded and produced ‘Whistle and Hum’, as well as the various kids’ music projects Anna has released since. A multi-instrumentalist, he’s well known as an electronica artist (Arma del Amor), and is a key collaborator in giving shape to her music.

“Danny said to me, ‘It’s called a record because you’re recording a moment in time.’ And I really feel like it’s been a big journey, and I really want to be present and in the joy of making music, and playing music.

“The word ‘play’ is also another key word to lean into, and I really want to just enjoy this journey. And you know, I’ve had amounts of funding and had a lot of support to create a lot of the children’s music content that I’ve put out there.

“This album, I just saved up for it and brought it together – because it feels like something I just want to stamp into my musical memories and share with those people around me. And create more opportunities to play to connected listening audiences, and be as human as possible.”

Anna reaches over to pick up a vinyl copy of her new album that she holds up with evident satisfaction.

“Right now I think the world needs more connection and more quality time together, and more humanness as we merge into more of an AI world. We can utilise those tools, but it’s so important that we spend this quality time together. So that’s what this album’s about. And you know, just like this vintage, physical thing that you can play and watch it turn, it feels important right now, right?”

‘Wooden Leg’s title track is a prime example of the way Anna values music for human connection, from a place of comparative isolation. She lives near Lake Hawea, central Otago, with “…two kids, a dog, a cat and nine chickens”, in a rural valley that has members of her husband’s extended family on various surrounding properties. Their children have aunties, uncles and grandparents all in easy walking distance, and it’s little surprise that in photos Anna invariably has a broad smile, reflecting a simple sense of joy.

She loves the principle of sharing, and when Kiwi artist friends like Amiria Grenell and Ryan Fisherman tour nearby the whole band are invited to stay. Young world travellers allied to WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, or “willing workers on organic farms” as she explains it), are regularly hosted too.

“We’d be absolutely lost without support from WWOOFers, so we have a lot of international people come through. It’s so cool, people from all different cultures come and help us with harvests, and do the gardens and everything.

“A few years ago we had these two really gorgeous American girls who were just a lot of fun. I took them through this as a lyric writing exercise – where you write a title, and then you fold the piece of paper and you write, like, one and a half lines, and then you fold it over – so all the next person sees is the half line. And you keep passing it around…

“The song Wooden Leg was actually a result of us doing that exercise, I was playing with a lot of open tunings on the guitar at that time. I loved the song, and it keeps us connected. I was able to get in touch and say, ‘Guess what? I’ve put our song on the album!’”

Ryan Fisherman provides the male voice for mandolin-backed blues folk duet Betty, a sombre lament for a wasted life that reveals its genesis in the final verse.

“So, you know the song In The Pines by Leadbelly, from the 1920s? Nirvana did a cover of it they called Where Did You Sleep Last Night, yeah. So that’s what I imagine as the back story of my girl, I called her Betty. That’s Betty’s story!”

Along with a handclapped rhythm, The Moon made a mess outta me has a jaunty Flamenco feel courtesy of Queenstown-based Yonatans Rācenājs, who Anna has performed with for several years. The Latvian musician also provided lead guitar on three other tracks, and helped with penning Letter To Myself while the pair drove home from a gig one night.

“I have a lot of moon songs,” she giggles. “That one’s just one for the ladies! You know, the moon makes a mess out of us.”

November Wind brings a clear jazz feel, which Anna explains by saying Billie Holiday remains one of her biggest musical influences.

“So there’s always a bit of a nostalgic kind of vintage feel that that I’m always feeling when I play music. And I think the jazz just keeps creeping in. The older I get I think I’ll lean more and more into jazz, and kind of vintage-sounding old jazz. But it’s always been there, that sort of Astrud Gilberto The Girl From Ipanema era sound. There’s just something about it, and that Latin feel is often in that kind of old stuff!”

Other musicians contributing to the album, some from long distance, include trad folk instrumentalist Brad McClure who’s part of her live band, The Back Road Revolution; Dunedin’s Rosalind Manowitz also plays fiddle; New Plymouth-based player Viv Treweek (another fellow Southlander) adds trumpet; and locally-domiciled Canadian multi-instrumentalist Skyler Stetler provided pedal steel and harmonica. Anna has stories of how she met and came to befriend each of them, but it’s co-producer Danny Fairley who she credits most with the consistent quality of her genre-tripping new album.

“I’m such a kind of creative hippie, I’m a bit loose with how I describe what I want things to sound like. Somehow he translates my lingo, and I’m always really proud of the work that we create together, and I love, I love the journey in the studio. It’s a lot of fun!

“He’s just a real visionary. So even the song, Wooden Leg, it sounds nothing like the original, but it’s just perfect. It was a perfect way to end the album.

“This is, our fifth album together, he’s spent years making children’s albums with me and we’ve been through a lot together. He’s a dad now, and I think looking back on the children’s music that we made when he was this really trendy electronic artist, you know, and I’m making little babies music! He always puts in 110% – and now his children are at kindergarten and my songs are used at mat time! You know, it’s a beautiful kind of cohesive journey.”