Twenty years ago in Pleasantville, New York, a 14-year old with glasses and an acoustic guitar was playing his first-ever paid gig in a coffee shop. By age 16, Anthony da Costa would become the youngest-ever winner of the Kerrville and Falcon Ridge Folk Festival songwriting competitions. Beginning his music career shockingly early, he began touring across the US and internationally as a teenager, sharing the stage with artists ranging from Loretta Lynn and Judy Collins to Big Thief and The Milk Carton Kids.
During the 2020 quarantine, Anthony dusted off his old audio interface and began recording himself, largely out of necessity. The result was a total rekindling of his love for production that began in middle school, recording with a single microphone in his parents' basement. As a result of his quarantine self-production work, friends began to reach out to Anthony to help them make their own records. As the word spread, da Costa found himself in high demand as a producer. He quickly outgrew the makeshift quarantine studio in his apartment kitchen, opening Pleasantville Recording in 2021.
Over the course of his career as a touring guitarist and harmony singer, Anthony has supported some of Americana’s most celebrated artists, including Sarah Jarosz, Aoife O'Donovan, Molly Tuttle, Yola, and Joy Williams (The Civil Wars). These collaborations have taken him to major stages such as the Hollywood Bowl, Bonnaroo, the Newport Folk Festival, and appearances on late-night television, including Conan and Jimmy Kimmel Live. To date, he’s released around a dozen albums and several EPs under his own name.
Walking into Pleasantville Recording feels like walking through a portal. Vintage gear glows and blinks warmly; soft lamps illuminate synths, drums, pianos, and a Hammond organ tucked into a corner. A reel-to-reel machine hums and instruments hang on the walls. It’s every musician’s dream; a musical museum collection you’re allowed to play with. If you ask da Costa, it’s the best place in the world. Here in these rooms, he’s recorded and collaborated with some of the best singer-songwriters in the Americana world, including Katie Pruitt, Lydia Luce, Merrick Winter, Tyler Childers, Courtney Marie Andrews, and more. It's here in this magic space that The No Send Letter was largely born. And as much as The No Send Letter reflects deeply on what happened in the past, there’s no doubt that for da Costa, it marks the beginning of something new and unprecedented.
