– Shares new single & video “Prayers of Consequence“
– New album ‘STREGA BEATA’
– Out March 17th on 2XLP/CD/Digital through Gilgongo Records
Today Lana Del Rabies has shared a second track from her forthcoming album, ‘STREGA BEATA’, set for release March 17th, 2023, on 2XLP/CD/Digital through Gilgongo Records.
After a brief hiatus, Sam An‘s dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project under the semi-notorious moniker Lana Del Rabies makes a potent return. ‘STREGA BEATA’, which loosely translates to “Blessed Witch,” is an apocalyptic myth told through dense, textural compositions pulling from the vast corners of dark genre music. The title’s meaning is appropriate for the existential, cathartic, and otherworldly themes explored.
The album begins with the ominous scorn of the all-knowing, intangible creator in “Prayers of Consequence,” with the lyric “You don’t know, what I’ll show,” coming in after the thundering kick of hypnotic, ritualistic drums and a delicate looped piano sample over a deep bass drone. The song moves into a layered, rhythmic warning from many voices, about the consequences of brutality and apathy, and the saga of a deity grappling with a man-made apocalypse.
The accompanying video is a collaborative effort between 5 American artists residing the southwest to bring the mystical and allegorical imagery of the song to life. Louise Saafi, Adam Cooper-Terán, Abraham Cooper, and M. Dean Bridges all collaborated to film various rituals performed by Lana Del Rabies over a span of 2 years in different landscapes of Arizona. A majority of the imagery was conceived between Sam An (Lana Del Rabies) and Louise Saafi in 2021 to depict and embody the multifaceted “Mother” creator figure that narrates STREGA BEATA. All of the artists involved collaborated to find environments that would be the setting of these rituals and shot their perspective of the events. These rituals are intended to transmute grief around violence and loss, in and of the natural world. The final product is a collaborative phantasmal vision between An and Cooper-Terán’s editing.
Listen to “Prayers of Consequence”: https://youtu.be/nW5Jl96S8vc
Other streaming options: https://songwhip.com/lanadelrabies/prayers-of-consequence
“There is a specific type of grief that comes from witnessing the brutality of what humans are capable of towards each other. If that grief goes unprocessed, it is doomed to also manifest as brutality,” says Phoenix-based musician and producer Sam An. “There have been many moments while writing this record that I was grieving through an event that was personal or worldwide, and then another sudden, tragic event would happen. I needed to re-evaluate what I wanted to say because my world and perspective had shifted again. Trying to keep up with tragedy can make one feel helpless, and one way to feel in control is through acts of destruction. My personal impulse towards destruction nearly ended this project.”
Written, produced, and almost entirely performed by An, she says, “I started writing the third record immediately after the promotion of Shadow World. I had recently become sober and was mending myself not just from experiences of abuse and trauma that occurred throughout my life, but processing how I had abused the people closest to me in my most out of control moments. I also at the time had a job involved in child welfare. The not-new and on-going the violent separation and exploitation of children at the US/Mexico border was everywhere in the media, and directly affecting the community around me. Brutality often feels like it is everywhere with how we experience the world now, but for the first time, I could not numb myself from it. That awareness only extended through the world events we all have had to live through these last few years, and the personal loss that came from that. I began working through the pain of abuse, death, and grief, through an actual story in my work”
This is where the mythical allegory in ‘STREGA BEATA’ begins – the record is told through the evolving perspective of a cryptic and obscure “Mother” creator figure, specifically echoing the mother and crone goddess archetypes. This figure is vocalized through LDR’s eerie harmonies, spoken words, pleading howls, and frenetic screams aimed towards another archetype, the chosen one. These vocalizations sometimes hover above trip-hop low tempos and unnerving atmospheres (“Mourning,” “Hallowed is the Earth”), sink through vintage horror movie darkwave synths (“Master,” “Apocalypse Fatigue”), weave through art metal distortions and relentless drone bass tones (Mother), or blast through unconventional industrial rhythms (“Prayers of Consequence,” “A Plague”).
Ultimately, ‘STREGA BEATA’ is a deep exploration of the cyclical consequences of unhealed grief for us and our world. “I have used this story to process the harm that power enables. There is a fine line between empowerment and using power to cope with the feeling of losing control. I thought a lot about the power of the natural world, particularly storms, while writing this. Storms are created by opposing pressures, causing destruction. It’s interesting how some ideologies will co-opt storms in their iconographies and language, but don’t acknowledge that storms are events that cannot be controlled or contained. The way out of pain is by reconciling what you cannot control and taking ownership of what you can. It is the only way to stop cycles of destruction. Sometimes you must complete another cycle before realizing you are ready to end it for yourself and others. I feel this record is the end of a destructive cycle for me, and why I returned to myself as this project.”
More about Lana Del Rabies:
Lana Del Rabies is the solo dark electronic, genre-bridging solo project of Phoenix based musician, producer and multimedia artist Sam An. With origins as an experimental project that re-contextualized the more ominous aspects of modern pop music made by women (like that of Lana Del Rey), Lana Del Rabies’ music incorporates industrial, gothic noise and metal, with experimental, darkwave and ambient elements. Her work thematically embodies discordant spaces between the occult and the political, personal trauma and collective grief, and brutality and benediction.
Her first two records, In The End I Am A Beast (2016) and Shadow World (2018) were released by Los Angeles based label Deathbomb Arc.
Track list:
1. Prayers of Consequence
2. A Plague
3. Master
4. Mother
5. Grace The Teacher
6. Mourning
7. Hallowed is the Earth
8. Reckoning
9. Apocalypse Fatigue
10. Forgive
Links:
https://lanadelrabies.com
https://twitter.com/imlanadelrabies
https://www.facebook.com/LanaDelRabiesMusic/
https://www.tiktok.com/@_lanadelrabies
https://www.instagram.com/iamlanadelrabies/
https://www.youtube.com/@lanadelrabiesmusic
