ALA.NI Premieres 'Cherry Blossom'; U.S. Debut 'You & I' Coming This Spring
By: Caryn Robbins Jan. 06, 2017
British-born, Paris-based artist ALA.NI has announced that her debut album You & I will see release in the U.S. through Missing Piece Records, distributed via Caroline in Spring 2017. With all songs written & produced by ALA.NI, the album was recorded in London at Owl Studios (owned by Sade's Andrew Hale) and Studio 13 (owned by Damon Albarn which makes sense as Ala.ni did backing vocals for Blur earlier in her career and Albarn has become a trusted mentor).
Stream "Cherry Blossom" here:
"'Cherry Blossom' is the first song from my You & I album. It starts the tale of a love story that begins fresh and flowing, in the brightness of Spring and ends in the darkened shadows of Winter....love for all seasons," says ALA.NI. "The song is about friendship, trust and lust. Key elements for any true love story."
ALA.NI stopped many people dead in their tracks when she appeared on Later...with Jools Holland, performing "Cherry Blossom" with a Disney-gone-noir vocal, as compulsively anachronistic as the sensibility of the track itself. ALA.NI arrived with a voice that seems to take in the cadences of musical history, and an idiosyncratic creative approach to conveying her music, including spooky, self-produced Super 8 videos, 19th century photo techniques for album packaging and release formats that include wax cylinder recordings and even a miniature music box. Her vocal stylings have been compared to Billie Holiday, Minnie Ripperton, Lena Horne, Judy Garland or Julee Cruise, but this is no nostalgia trip and to make these simple comparisons would be, as Glamour noted "a disservice because the thing about this West London-born singer is that she is totally unique."
Raised in Shepherds Bush by Grenada-born parents - a reggae-calypso bassist father, and a couture seamstress mother - ALA.NI sang them "Over The Rainbow" at the age of 3, and her talent was immediately obvious. She attended the Sylvia Young School whose alumni also include Amy Winehouse, Rita Ora and many other British artists and after leaving school, ALA.NI worked as a backing vocalist for artists as varied as Andrea Bocelli, Mary J Blige and Blur.
ALA.NI is now living and working in Paris, charging into the future. You & I has changed ALA.NI in other ways, too: during a recent spot at David Lynch's Paris Silencio club, the idea of the performance, and its timelessness, soaked into her bones, and the idea of history being brought into the present - her own, and that of music - was suddenly golden, forever.
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