Hania Rani: Home (2LP)

While the pieces collected on Esja were primarily based on her fascination with the piano and she accordingly concentrated on this instrument, the follow-up Home is much broader and more cinematic, the sound spectrum this time significantly expanded: Hania Rani not only relies on vocals and electronic elements, because this time she is also supported by a rhythm section for some tracks - consisting of Ziemowit Klimek (bass) and Wojtek Warmijak (drums). These new tracks were also recorded by ancestral sound engineers Piotr Wieczorek and Ignacy Gruszecki (Monochrom Studio), with Gijs van Klooster doing the mixing in his Amsterdam studio and Piotr Wieczorek in Warsaw ("Ombelico", "Come Back Home"). Home was mastered in Berlin by Zino Mikorey, known for his work with artists such as Nils Frahm and Olafur Arnalds. Hania Rani clearly sees Home as a continuation of the work she began with Esja - a "completion of the movement," as she puts it herself. Listeners* can expect a metaphorical journey: The album tells the story of places that become our home - which sometimes happens quite by accident, sometimes deliberately and planned. It tells of leaving a familiar place and of the journey that follows. Home begins with a passage from Bruno Schulz's short story "Loneliness," which stands as a parable for a kind of journey that doesn't necessarily involve leaving home at all; rather, it involves crossing the symbolic boundaries of experience and imagination. "To me, Home feels like the continuation of the same book.... Esja was, in a sense, the beginning, the sonic preface for the story proper. And Home is now a story with a real ending, so the next book can be about something completely different again. I'm always looking for new forms of expression, and now I'm curious where Home will lead me and my music next." - Hania Rani "I feel like 'Home' is a second part of the same book, that the start was in 'Esja', a musical prelude to a real plot. I feel Home is a story with an ending, so the next book can tell a totally different one. I am constantly looking for new ways of expression. I am curious where 'Home' will lead me and my music." - Hania Rani