AnnaMelina - Katarsis (EP) - Review
Katarsis (EP)
AnnaMelina
Released: May 24th, 2016
TrainRec AB / Universal Music Sverige AB
Words:Peter Quincy Ng
Auto-tune, the ubiquitous pitch-bending vocoder that so famously appears in hip-hop and pop music has always been met with much criticism. Enter Sweden’s Anna Melina Åkerman Kvie, who takes back the notion that auto-tune is simply for “bad singing”. With her digitally-encoded heartbreak, appearing across the board on her latest EP “Katarsis”, AnnaMelina turns her pitch-bent vocals into a thing of beauty: brilliantly nuanced both in emotion and sound. Focusing on a beat-driven sound, that’s subtly Scandinavian, Anna’s electronic elements never resort to excess, and her sound is for the textured self-reflection than that of the dance floor. Slow and spacious, her hip-hop-flavored production undulates under surging waves of bass and drum pads. Spilling out over a dreamy façade, AnnaMelina drops five songs of liquid cool på svenska, the last one which features a collaboration with Swedish rapper Jaqe.
“RN”
Notably Anna’s most aurally-arresting track, “RN” is a bumping piece where hook-heavy choruses and Åkerman’s vocoded sound take front stage. Using her repetition for emphasis, AnnaMelina’s driving drum snares steer through the puncturing keys and lurking bass as she sings in Swedish, "Det här betyder inget särskilt/ Du ljuger om att vara ärlig och om jag ska vara ärlig så är det slut, så är det / Du kan inte ta mig" (This means nothing in particular/ You lie about being honest and if I'll be honest, it's over, that's it. You cannot take me), again and again for emphasis. It’s a song that’s aptly-suited for the album’s title, struggling to break free from both lies and the truth. Check out AnnaMelina’s live take of the track below:
“Snöflingor”
A downtempo follow-up to AnnaMelina’s opener, “Snowflakes” moves along more gradually as her pitch-bent legato blurs the track into a dreamy daze. Following a surging, wave-like progression, the track contracts and expands; first to a decrescendo, then midway building-up with its synths to a snaring climax in a haze of vocal ethereality.
“Lila Himmel”
Perhaps Åkerman Kvie’s most vocal performance on the record, “Purple Sky” is a cold and crisp track that showcases all of AnnaMelina has to offer. A wintery track with its piano keys crystallizing over the crumble of AnnaMelina’s emotion, the hip-hop flavored production is what makes AnnaMelina’s genre-hybridized sound so unique, from the drums to the vocal staccato of her rap-game drill. Check out AnnaMelina’s fluid delivery as she oozes over the scenic backdrops, which yes, do feature purple skies:
“Stormens Öga”
It’s not a track which you would associate with a turbulent title like “The Eye of the Storm” its a track that instead oozes over an uneasy calm. It’s a retreating track, but one that glimmers with its frozen ambiance of its wintery chimes over the battered emotion of Åkerman.
“Vilsen (feat. Jaqe)”
Instead of fading away, the clamoring piano loops of “Lost”, suggest something else on her collaboration Swedish rapper Jaqe. With its gunning, rapid-fire drum beats to match the relatively bold and brash sound of “Lost”, Jaqe’s paragraphed rap verses offer as an emancipation to Anna’s drudgery. Brandishing her scars, AnnaMelina exclaims, “Var varit vilsen” (I’ve been lost) as she seemingly relishes finding her freedom in the truth when singing retrospectively.
