The now iconic ‘Live from Studio S2’ mesmerizing performance gets a sought after limited vinyl edition and now features all four tracks from the session including the previously unreleased ‘Hawaii Oslo’ and ‘Glass’ which will also be available to stream and download. First premiered on the Gondwana Records YouTube channel on Sunday March 28th 2021 at 8:00 PM / 9:00PM CET, it has since become a global success reaching 3 million views and counting and has earned Rani many more devoted fans.
Hania Rani is an award-winning pianist, composer and musician who, was born in Gdansk and splits her life between Warsaw, where she makes her home, and Berlin where she studied and often works. The motivation to make the recording of the live performances which became the release ‘Live from Studio S2’ came from the invitation from the Berlinale Film Festival. Rani confirms:
“In the beginning of February 2021, I was asked to record a live set as a part of EFM sessions, which are the part of the Festival. I thought that bringing back my piano and equipment to the hall where I recorded my live session videos for my debut album 'Esja' would be a nice idea and the right cinematic choice. This time, I wanted to use not only an upright piano, but also a grand piano and some other keyboards including a Prophet 08 synthesizer and a Roland stage piano.”
Rani continues: “The iconic Studio S2 is one of the recording studios of Polish Radio in Warsaw. The hall is fully covered with light wood, which reminds me of other Radio Studios all around the world - like Funkhaus in Berlin. It felt very special to be in the hall where we recorded a video for "Glass", one of my most liked videoclip. There is a kind of intimacy when playing the little piano in this huge and also very high venue.”
Starting with ‘Hawaii Oslo’, which is built on a piano loop, followed by ‘Glass’ with a new intro and outro and closing with ‘Leaving’ and ‘Buka’ . The session was filmed by Rani’s long time collaborators - Mateusz Miszczynski, recorded by Agata Dankowska, mixed by Piotr Wieczorek and mastered by Zino Mikorey. Recorded live on the 4th of February 2021 in Warsaw.
