Emanuel Ayvas Announces Solo Piano LP 'Via Romana'

Emanuel Ayvas has announced Via Romana, a new album set for release on October 28, 2022 via Historical Fiction Records.

Via Romana is a set of solo piano compositions (as well as an arrangement of Julio Iglesias's "Abrázame") that imagine some daydreamer's life from their 07:30am wake up to their 11:23pm bedtime. To ring in the announcement, Ayvas has shared the album's opening track, "7:30 AM," which depicts the album's subject's first moments of the day.

"This album is a special one for me," says Ayvas. "After at least 20 years of telling myself I'm going to make a solo piano album someday it means a lot seeing that happen now and I can't think of a better group of people to be releasing it with."

The majority of Via Romana was composed in Florence, Italy in 2019, but Ayvas drew from almost 15 years of improvisations, fragments, and voice memos collected in cities across the world adding, rearranging, and revising the material. The result is a tight set of piano works that move with a dreamy momentum, twisting and turning in ways reminiscent of the ancient streets in the city where much of the album was conceived.

Via Romana marks a departure for Ayvas, a classically trained pianist, who is best known for his work as the creative force behind Brooklyn chamber pop mainstays Emanuel and the Fear, synth psych-rock band Pale Ramon, and experimental noise outfit Ayvas and Baller.

Historical Fiction commissioned the album as part of its initiative to give songwriters and composers space to mine untapped creative material in the hopes of answering the question "what if?"

The release of Via Romana is the culmination of a year in which Ayvas released a new single every week. Sheet music of the works will be available for purchase along with the recording of the album on October 28th, 2022 digitally or in person at one of Emanuel's performances across the US and Europe in the coming year.

Emanuel Ayvas is a composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. his music spans various styles and genres - from chamber pop with his band emanuel and the fear, synth psych-rock with his band pale ramon, and experimental noise music with his group ayvas and baller.

In October of 2021, Ayvas started a project releasing a new single every week for a year that will reach completion this fall with what will be almost 60 new singles. As the last singles are coming out, he and historical fiction records will officially release via romana, an album of solo piano pieces, which will be his second official release as a solo artist. His first, talk about the weather makes me happy, was released in the spring of 2022.

Listen to the new single here: