Amiena

This weekend I got reacquainted, so to speak, with a singer / songwriter I have enjoyed in the past. Her name is Amiena (pronounced ah-ME-nah) and these she splits her time between Los Angles and London, with trips to (from her website - I am not making this up) Italy, Lebanon, Syria, Greece, Switzerland, Dubai, Prague, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Darfur. And so on. Whew!

   

I knew her from her previous work, Right Here released in 2006 and Amiena in 2012, as and R&B, jazz, and pop singer with an above-average voice. What I heard this weekend was so good it sent me into full obsession mode, where I still am tonight. She has just released her third album, Real, and it is so much better and so different than anything I have heard recently I am still coming to terms with it. Here's a sample:




Pretty darned cool, yes? The wonder of this album is that just when you think you have figured out what it's about, Amiena takes it in a new direction. This track makes me think: what if Karen Carpenter had recorded in, say Morocco? And listen to the spine-tingling dissonance from the backing vocals.



And, yet another direction, the title track is a totally conventional and achingly beautiful jazz ballad, backed by drums, bass and piano.

My feelings are right there in the lyric: "I don't know where this will go, and I don't care, I’ll take the chance."

If, like me, you just have to know more about Amiena, she is everywhere on the Internet. Just for starters:
http://amiena.com/
http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/Amiena
http://www.amazon.com/Amiena/
http://www.reverbnation.com/amiena
http://www.facebook.com/AmienaMusic
http://twitter.com/AmienaA
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/amiena/id158182947