Vanessa Anne Redd Releases New Single ‘What’s Next’

Half-German London-based singer-songwriter Vanessa Anne Redd is set to release her second album ZumboWaxes on 25 January 2019 via Sharp Attack Records. 

Rich in atmosphere and emotional texture, on ZumboWaxes Redd has created an enchanted gothic folk sound all of her own. Classic and percussive guitar, cyclical octave range of piano, baroque-esque string arrangements, Hammond organ, percussion and tape effects meld together and are laced with Redd’s fragile and bewitching vocal. It’s a sound that flirts between the jagged electric guitar of Angel Olson, Holly Golightly or PJ Harvey, the intimacy of Leonard Cohen and the off-kilter theatre of Regina Spektor, Hunky Dory-era Bowie and 1970’s Scott Walker. 

Conceived in the Victorian in Florence, Italy, ZumboWaxes is a collection of ten songs as still lifes which takes its name and influence from the 17^th-century baroque sculptor Guetano Giulio Zumbo. On ZumboWaxes Zumbo’s macabre works of anatomy, plague, early science and religious salvation is mutated into songs shot through with the bittersweet tang of forbidden fruit, existential angst and spiritual yearning. It’s a record characterised by human frailty and frustrations and a search for meaning and redemption. The record’s recurring cyclical motifs mirror the endless wheel of life turning its course through snapshot states that tell a story.

Redd has created a film to accompany the record, a series of her own moving still lifes. The album scores the film and each song is translated through a psychedelic colour sequence that we travel along following the transformative journey into battle and through different states and realms. Inspired by films such as Closet’s ‘L’enfer’, Sayat-Nova’s ‘The Colour of Pomegrantes’ and Věra Chytilová‘s ‘Daisies’, German Folk tales, Alice in Wonderland, the still life for each song leads us into the next phase of the Zumbo Waxes. Colour theory dictated the order of the record and in turn the track sequence influenced the film.

In the spirit of Zumbo’s waxworks, the album was recorded at Gizzard Analogue studio in London over three days to capture each performance live as a recorded ‘still life’. Co-produced by Redd with Ed Deegan, the record uses single takes to tape without edits, save additional guitar lines, backing vocals, strings and trumpet overdubs. 

Zumbo Waxes is released digitally on 25 January 2019 via Sharp Attack Records. 

Vanessa Anne Redd tours Germany this November, before returning home for a show on the 29 November at Servants Jazz Quarters, London. 

Connect with Vanessa Anne Redd via:
Website: vanessaanneredd.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/vanessa.a.redd
Instagram: www.instagram.com/vanessaanneredd/

Press contact: Hannah Gould

hannahgould@hannahgould.co.uk | 0797 4000415

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