Wanthanee Is Excited To Releases Her Self Titled Debut Album

Today the long-awaited debut album of Wanthanee is out. It’s a gem that confirms Wanthanee more than ever as... herself. Her wide, warm voice still reaches out like a comforting shoulder while the rich arrangements draw the listener into her thoughts, her vision, her universe more than ever. It is a nice place to be, take it from us.
"For me, the album is a collection of songs, each of which I wrote to comfort myself or to process something. For example, 'Taipei' is a song I wrote after returning from our first Taiwan trip. The stress I felt before was completely gone after the trip and I really wanted to make a song out of that. One of the choures in it is inspired by a tune I heard there as well. Most of the songs have the theme 'after rain comes sunshine', but in general it's always a look back to a certain moment in my life that has made such an impression on me that I had to write about it. For me it's almost impossible to write a song just because it sounds cool. Although, the writing usually starts with a melody stuck in my head, the lyrics are always decisive because the melody is then reinforced in meaning, and vice versa. So somehow lyrics and melody must be inseparable. I like to tell every show I am at, what my songs are about, to illustrate how important it is and meaning the songs have."

"In terms of instrumental, it was an extreme challenge to create an arrangement. Everything (outside of 1 song written with the piano) was composed with the guitar. Orson has been a huge help with that. The arranging for the whole album was done by the two of us, and he is also responsible for the recordings and the mix. Also, two other musicians played on the record once. It was a long process, with about 7 songs written in 2 years (which was a huge achievement!) and on top of that, 2 years were needed to find the right arrangement and to mix it.

"It was a search for identity, which is funny because the songs themselves are a bit about 'identity crisis'. As for the sound, I have always found it important that everything comes from myself as much as possible. I've always refused to listen to any 'inspirations' because then I think you want to be too much like that (I'm personally convinced of that, but of course that's not necessarily the case. I'm very stubborn about that too, you know). So if I was 'stuck' somewhere, and someone tole me 'maybe you should listen to ... or ..., then my answer was invariably NOPE. I can't handle it when people try to push me in a certain direction, even if they don't necessarily mean it. In general, I'm not a super big music listener either. So, as I may have mentioned last time, I know very little music. Maybe I even know a little more of the classical genre."

Listen to 'Wanthanee' here.

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