Recorded by Jonathan Tams at Owl Studios, London
& Stephen Sedgwick at Studio 13, London
Mixed by Stephen Sedgwick at Studio 13, London
Mastered by Huntsmen Music at The Premises, London
ALA.NI - Lead vocals, backing vocals, steel pan, percussion, hohner guitaret
Rob Updegraff - Guitar, bass guitar
Joao Caetano - Percussion
Maria Christina Harper - harp
James Welland - Piano
Graeme Flowers - Flugel Horn
Written And Produced By ALA.NI
(P) 2016 Ala.Ni (C) 2016 Nø Førmat!
Published By Downtown Music Publishing
Under License A+Lso, A Division Of Sony Music Entertainment
True artists are lonely people. And the most precious and rarest ones of all are even more lonely than the others. They shine like diamonds in the dark. Or, like stars in the sky, generously spread their light over an ungrateful world that takes their great humanity and talent for granted. These genuine artists deserve the best and the purest of treatment and surrounding. They don’t need overstated strings arrangements to glow, just as they dont need a full box of colours to paint. A single shade will do : blue. And a single flower : a rose, the prettiest. Natural elegance and sophistication are all they require.
ALA.NI is one such performer. Once you see her on stage, you can only fall instantly in love. She doesn’t use the weapons others singers do to conquer her audience. Neither power nor force, although she’s brave enough to stand, alone, courageously exposing herself in all her difference and uniqueness. Nor even seduction, even if her figure and her fascinating long arms, stretched out, add a most delicate charm to her vivid love songs. At times, she closes her eyes. She can, as the sincereness in her voice says it all. The kind of voice that appears only once in a blue moon. Silky, warm, melancholic, modulated, powerful. The voice of a perfectly trained soprano, beautifully altered by the smoky touch of a jazz diva. Yes, the kind of voice that imposes silence and maybe shines a light on each member of the audience’s most secret thoughts and feelings, drawing discreet tears from their eyes. But above all, a voice that projects a thrill, most often one of absolute joy.
In another life, this Londoner, born from Grenadian parents, was a child performer. From the age of five, she learned how to dance, sing and act at the Sylvia Young Theatre School, just like Amy Winehouse did. Both her parents, her father, a professional bass player in reggae-calypso bands, and her mother, a couture seamstress, were naturally supportive of her dancing and singing skills after witnessing her love at first sight for music, when she performed « Over the rainbow » in a church during ballet lessons at the age of three. By the age of seven, she could be away from home for months on end, working on commercials, musicals, pop videos or Jim Henson broadcasts. Discipline became part of her life, at the same time as learning to express her deepest emotions, including… cruelty.
« A child performer’s psychology is very peculiar, as one has seen with Michael Jackson or Britney Spears. Because not only are you programmed to show off, you’re also taught how to deal to rejection that comes with auctions and castings. Children can be very cruel to each other. And some of them who worked a lot when they’re small and cute lose work when puberty kicks in. It’s almost as savage as a battle. I was lucky, as an only child who remained a silent observer, I was accepted by different groups. »
Like after any fight, you need to recover. Emerging from such an unusual childhood, ALA.NI had no choice than to live her life, this time for real. By singing backing vocals for Damon Albarn (Blur) or Mary J. Blige. By studying film editing, working for a while in brand marketing and presenting her first collection at The 2011 London Fashion Week. By falling, several times, in and out of love. Most of all, by taking her time. To question her art and let her inspiration grow.
For her, revelation came, like in classic tragedy, in three acts. First, she met a friendly ghost in the guise of Leslie Hutchinson, nicknamed « Hutch », her great uncle, who happened to be one of the most famous cabaret stars during the 1920’s and 30’s, as well as Cole Porter’s lover. ALA.NI was present, in 2012, on the day British officials put up a commemorative plaque outside his former London home. « When I realized what he’d achieved back in the 30’s - he was the only black man more or less accepted in high society -, I felt determined to learn more about his story in order to build from it. »
Next, about two months later, she composed her first song, Cherry Blossom, in Grenada, where her grandparents live. The rest of the songs from her album, wrote and produced by herself, whilst hiding away in an artist studio in Shepherd’s Bush or at the Boronali Hotel in Paris, came naturally in it’s stride. Finally, she figured out that simplicity, as opposed to overdoing everything like she was trained to do in her childhood, was the only way to be true to herself. Truth appears, just like a photograph dipped into a developer bath, when you rid yourself from all the tricksand gimmicks you’ve learned. Then, only the heart and the soul remain. That’s why ALA.NI’s stunning songs touch us deeper than most others. Timeless, concise, arranged and orchestrated with infinite delicacy, they reinvent feelings of love, heartbreak, a first kiss or sorrow, like we were encountering them for the first time. With the grace of musical haïkus, a touch of innocence and naivety, they are the perfect setting for her mesmerizing vocal performances. Like in the best of Broadway musicals, they possess the magical power to sublimate reality. The rest, as they say, will soon be history.
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