BY Tinashe Venge
The 6th of October was a pretty big day for music releases. While many across the globe were barking about a certain rapper’s new album, closer to home it was a young singer-songwriter who had listeners pressing the “repeat” button on, well, repeat.
Ananya’s debut project, I Woke Up One Night, dropped at midnight on Friday and since then it’s been an exciting, emotional, intriguing and above all, eclectic journey into her first body of work. Speaking to her for Front Page Magazine, Ananya explained that the key concept behind the album was inspired by a dream she had.
In her EP, she brings the events of her dreams to life as she sings “I woke up one night in the summer before we broke up, I knew you were lying to me then, with a girl you shouldn’t have been” in the album’s opener, Bad For You.
The theme of dreams, night time visions and late-night creativity runs through the entire project and serves for a wonderful bed (no pun intended) for Ananya to tell her stories.
Bad For You erupts into a punk-pop chorus that serves as an anthem for anybody who has ever been wronged and in many ways it sets the tone for what’s to come. While not all of us were there in the room whenever the breakups and arguments happened – almost all of us can relate to many of the stories she tells. Romance isn’t easy, and we’ve all experienced a Bad For You moment at one point or another.
In I’m Too Nice she muses “Since the beginning, I’ve always been the bigger person, was it worth it?” – a thought that many hopeless romantics can relate to.
Production for the album was overseen by big name producers including Greg Abrahams and Josh Berry. The latter is famed for his work in punk-rock and you can definitely hear the influence in plenty of the song’s melodies. Gone (forever) wouldn’t feel out of place in an Olivia Rodrigo-inspired playlist for punk rock lovers with broken hearts.
However, Ananya shows many of her vulnerabilities in many of the EP’s more melancholy songs. October, which she explains is one of the songs closest to her heart, is sung on top of a hollow acoustic soundtrack as she expresses how she wishes she could have been more prepared for an encounter with an ex-lover who she still holds in high regard.
On Macy Gray, the third single released from the project, she sings about all of the things she tries not to miss about her former lover – including long drives, with seatbelts strapped while he sings along to a Macy Gray track.
At a time when punk and emo rock are experiencing a mainstream revival, Ananya’s EP feels not only relevant to the times but relevant to the experiences of most listeners. Love, loss and lessons are a part of growth and Ananya’s dream-inspired stories are ones that many people will enjoy listening on repeat.
At the end of all the challenges comes growth. She ends her EP with the track I Feel So New. Once again, it starts with a dream. “I had a nightmare about the years from now. Living in my head, I needed to sort it out” she sings to her doctor before the doc responds by saying “That’s just growing up”.
It feels as if through all the challenges, the tough-to-swallow betrayals, the difficult confrontations with ex-lovers, the battle of forgetting an old flame, out of it all Ananya has come out a more rounded and emotionally matured person.
I Feel So New feels like a perfect note on which to end the record. She sings of clarity and sings with optimism as she embraces the fact that all of the difficulties helped shape her into the person she’s become now. And we, the listeners, are better for it.
