Hania Rani is first and foremost an explorer, her background in classical music becoming a launch pad towards composition and de-composition, borrowing something from jazz, something from house and dance music and even something from folk and pop. Genres, instruments (her voice included), themes and concepts turn into limitless maps that don’t demand to be fully discovered and defined; on the contrary, they ask to remain borderless. Ghosts, published by Gondwana Records, affirms this tendency, the clean blurriness of an experienced and educated musician, dancing on the edge of life and death itself, as Rani explained, recounting how the record came to be: “The edge of life and death and what actually happens in between: this was what really interested me”. The lyrics and the title of the album were the result of her stay in a Swiss mountain town, where local legends about hauntings and spirits reached her ears; her studio itself was an ex-sanatorium. A limbo where life and death co-exist in domesticity. Oltre Terra, the track introducing us to Ghosts, brings us there with the eerie, strings-like sounds from her Prophet/piano setup, welcoming us to that enormous space that paradoxically feels like a small, warm home all at the same time. Soon enough, after the more upbeat Hello, where we get to hear Rani’s voice for the first time, we find company – and therefore the other side of the coin, solitude – in Don’t Break My Heart, featuring Duncan Bellamy (drummer for Portico Quartet, composer and visual artist), who will re-appear later on in Thin Line. Beside Bellamy, pianist and composer Olafur Arnalds joins in for Whispering House, a reflection on what remains of words after the one who uttered them leaves; and the absence of words – and how it does not equal silence – is central in the other track featuring another artist, Patrick Watson, this time lending his voice in Dancing with Ghosts. It’s the only song with two different singers, but Watson either echoes Rani’s singing or hums, adorning her loneliness with nostalgia (And you will be silence with mine / In the fire, in the night / We will be dancing like ghosts apart / Will you be dancing tonight?). Instrumental pieces like 24.03, The Boat and Komeda – the spectacular tribute to Polish pianist Krzysztof Komeda that finally got its studio release after being only performed live – alternate with the aforementioned songs, developing an ethereal sense of time and space: contraction and expansion, embrace and flight. Ghosts gently unravels transience before us and gives it back through a haunting soundscape that doesn’t fear vulnerability or emotion.
On ‘Ghosts’, Hania Rani is bringing her songwriting and beautiful vocals to the fore and featuring special guests Patrick Watson, Ólafur Arnalds and Duncan Bellamy (Portico Quartet).
Ghosts is the sound of an ever-evolving artist and, just as the album’s title suggests she passes repeatedly and gracefully between musical worlds: as composer, singer, songwriter, and producer. This album builds on Rani’s earlier successes Esja and Home with an expanded yet still minimal setup of piano, keyboards, synths (most importantly her Prophet) and features more of her mysterious, bewitching voice. Its spirit is warm, beckoning one into an ambitious double album that unfolds at an exquisite pace, informed by her revelatory, exploratory live performances.
Ghosts is also an album of collaborations as Rani is joined by Patrick Watson, who breathes unearthly life into the ethereal ‘Dancing with Ghosts’. ‘Whispering mHouse’is written and recorded with her friend, Ólafur Arnalds and casts a peaceful, ineluctable spell; and Portico Quartet’s Duncan Bellamy contributes mvital loops to ‘Don’t Break My Heart’ and ‘Thin Line’.
Rani’s lyrics are partially inspired by a two-month residency in a small studio in Switzerland’s mountains, where Rani was working on the soundtrack On Giacometti for a documentary about the renowned Swiss artist. “Where I stayed was once an old sanatorium in an area which used to be very popular, but now there are huge abandoned hotels where the locals say ghosts live. I mean, it’s kind of a local belief system – these ghosts even have names! – but once you’re deep into nature or some abandoned place, your imagination starts working on a mdifferent level.”
“The edge of life and death,” Rani summarises, “and what actually happens in between: this was what really interested me. Even singing the word ‘death’ was quite a shock. It’s such a weird word to say out loud, and people are afraid of it, which I found extremely interesting. Most of the songs probably still talk about love and things like that, but Ghosts is more me thinking about having to face some kind of end.”
If Rani’s debut Esja was about exploiting her principal instrument, and Home saw her take steps towards a fuller expression of her art, Ghosts is where she unites her varied interests on what might even be considered her first ‘real’ album. Drawing upon a fondness for diverse artists like Enya, The Smile, James Blake and Pink Floyd – not to mention her admiration for her guests – and evoking Stina Nordenstam’s delicacy, Keith Jarrett’s flair, Kate Bush’s artistry and Pink Floyd’s probing inclinations, it combines a lifetime’s musical experience in one miraculous, cosmic world. Say hello, then, to something quite unlike anything you’ve ever heard. It’s the sound of Hania Rani.
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