On her new full-length album „Gummy“, Basel-based musician Anna Aaron dreams up her own way of exercising the influence of electronic music upon melodic pop songs.
The strong focus of Anna’s songwriting on the element of rhythm becomes more evident than ever on her fourth record, which draws its influences from German electronic music of the 1970’s, Bowie’s “Station to Station” and alternative pop. Bernard Trontin of The Young Gods took her sequenced beats and translated them onto the drum kit, achieving a heavy rock sound with percussive layers that maintains an intuitive musicality while exploring compellingly creative ideas.
The songs were produced by Anna in her studio and at the little house in the mountains where she had previously recorded her takes for “Moonwaves”, the precedent collaboration with Bernard Trontin. When the production was nearly finished, Anna’s brother Alain Meyer recorded the drum takes at his studio in Basel. The result is a mesmerizing journey through both dark energy and shimmering playfulness that lives off the strong emotional performances of Anna Aaron and Bernard Trontin. It radiates the desire to move.
The themes of the album are centered around personal narrative and identity. It’s basically a record about heartbreak in its late stages, when you have already begun meeting new people and reclaiming your emotional space.
“Producing a song can feel a lot like furnishing a room”, Anna says about the recording process. “You have the basis through the chords and the melody, and then you think about little things to add to it, to decorate it and make it more personal and interesting. In a way, every record you make is a little world you build for yourself that you can then live in for a year or so. The ‘Gummy’-world feels especially magical to me because I have never put so much personal effort and precision into the creation of an album before. My wish is that others can live in it too, and hopefully find some comfort and support there.”
