Berlin singer of 'alien pop' music, Anna
Aliena, has released two variations of the Hungarian classic, “Gloomy
Sunday.” The song was a global hit of the 1930s, and was performed
as stock material during the swing era of jazz by big-band leaders
such as Billy Holiday, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw, Gene Krupa, Duke
Ellington, and the Dorsey Brothers. It was originally written in 1933
by the Hungarian composer Rezsö Seress, who wrote the song in an
apparent effort to make himself a musical success. “Gloomy Sunday”
is a song full of yearning, pain, and regret (the Great Depression
and the rise of fascism in Seress' home nation, Hungary, were
happening concurrently). Its heartbreaking themes of death and
futility caused a wave of mass suicide throughout the civilized
world, and 'Gloomy Sunday' was almost banned. In the nineteen
thirties and forties, the song's infamously dismal overtones were
enormously popular. Today, Anna Aliena's dark, operatic style fits
them like a glove in these, her two modern renditions, “Lovers in
War” and “Suicide Drive.”
Aliena, whose EP, “Cinderella.,” was
published by Go!Diva Records worldwide in August of 2012, is
classically trained and possesses a remarkably strong voice in the
mezzo-soprano range. Her style of goth revival is typified by a
powerful emotional undercurrent in each of her songs, which she
builds into a fugue-like tower of tension before soaring above the
wall of music with clarity, vivacity and passion. She places her
music into a genre all its own: alien pop.
“Gloomy
Sunday (Suicide Drive)” is a sprint toward certain doom at
breakneck speeds. A digital arrangement of organs, hammering beats,
and the rising and falling of Aliena's own arresting vocals, the
piece is impossible to hear without experiencing a touch of anxiety,
a tinge of fate, and a twang of the heartstrings. Like much of her
other music, Aliena's “Suicide Drive” edition of Seress' classic
is an intense ocean of instrumentation and operatic beauty.
Her other release, “Lovers in War,”
is more traditionally goth-inspired, yet Aliena uses too many of her
own techniques to call the track traditional in any way. True to her
“alien pop” subtext, the single is entirely hers in tone and
performance. The keyboards lift and swirl, the drums beat out a
tribal, raw rhythm, and her trilling, commanding voice lies atop the
sound like velvet on a turbulent ocean. The accompanying music video
is properly morbid and black, and Aliena, herself, appears as dainty
and disturbing as an undead doll, moving through the trees, rooms and
walkways of a gorgeous ruins.
Aliena has penned new, highly poetic
lyrics for each version. She says of her words, “The song deals
with a suicide I’ve never committed…”
For
music fans, “Gloomy Sunday” represents one of the art's most
treasured and historic pieces. For Anna Aliena fans, “Suicide
Drive” and “Lovers in War” are destined to represent some of
her most thrilling and distinguishing accomplishments.
The singles “Suicide Drive” and
“Lovers in War”are distributed globally by MondoTunes
(www.MondoTunes.com)
and is available at iTunes for convenient purchase and download
MondoTunes
(www.mondotunes.com)
supplies the largest music distribution in the world and provides
upstream services for many major labels in search of breakout
artists. While most independent distributors reach only 45-50
retailers despite charging needless monthly and yearly fees,
MondoTunes reaches over 750 retailers and mobile partners in over 100
world regions without any monthly or yearly fees.
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