Hania Rani - Esja Hania Rani

Released: 04/08/23

Every now and again a debut album comes along that sounds so fully realised that it takes your breath away. Esja, by the Warsaw- and Berlin-based artist Hania Rani, is one such gem. A brilliant pianist and stunning vocalist (think Björk doing her inside' voice), Rani's beguiling compositions are sensual, free, atmospheric, harmonious and hypnotic, and so, while the tracks are sometimes markedly different “ compare track two, Hello', whose instrumentation is redolent of a tranquillised Giorgio Moroder, with track five, Dancing With Ghosts', a duet with Patrick Watson that sounds like First Aid Kit performing over a particularly crystalline Yann Tiersen track “ all project a truly intoxicating sense of unlimited space and time. Stunning.