Hania Rani Instagram – Time flies – as a poet once said.
It has been 5 years since the release of my debut album “Esja”.
It feels like ages ago but at the same time as it could be just yesterday. “Esja” completely changed my life and pushed it to a new direction. I would never even dream of being able to make a living from composing and performing my own music beforehand. Maybe this is the reason why (although I am still embarrassed when listening to some of the songs now) the album captures something utterly genuine and pure. Not perfectly estimated or precisely planned, just a set of recordings rendered out of curiosity and passion. Fragile, sometimes naive, but truly mirroring this unique moment of creating something from scratch.
I started to record Esja already in 2016, I took a couple of months break from my Studies in Berlin (back then I was still studying classical music) and decided to spend this time on developing my own tunes. This journey hadn’t been planned either so recordings were happening spontaneously whenever me and my sound engineer Piotr were able to gather some microphones and meet at my apartment in Warsaw. I was still moonlighting here and there and didn’t have an idea about the music market at all. I just felt I needed to do it otherwise I would go mad. Couple of months later I met Bergurg Thorisson through my best friend in Berlin. Bergur was still a kid in 2017 but already massively hailed for engineering his own microphones and working with such legends as Björk. He invited me over to Iceland to continue my recordings and I didn’t think twice. I remember arriving in late August to Reykjavik after a horrendously long journey. I was totally knackered and starving but too shy to say it out loud. Bergur took me for ice-creams instead and we ended up taking a picture of this hilarious moment.
I spent a week in Iceland. Bergur was working simultaneously on Björk’s new album so we had to record my stuff in the evenings or during the night, half-asleep, lucidly dreaming (Bergur – you are a legend).
I remember I learnt then that the best takes capture the entire performances, edits are usually not helping the mood and certain drive of the song. | Posted on 05/Apr/2024 20:30:33
