NEW ALBUM
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
Powerful, majestic and phenomenal!
With her stunningly original eco-pop album Acrotopia, Inanna invites into a world which is recognizably our own, but where the struggles over the future of nature and the Earth takes on mythical proportions. With a pathbreaking concept, and a musical style all of her own, she crafts epic songs of beauty, tragedy and hope, simultaneously giving a voice to nature and speaking on behalf of humanity.
Opening with the catchy and mysterious “Change”, an explicit activist declaration, Inanna follows up with the enigmatic Nefertiti XXI, which calls forth a “female king, a cyber goddess, all clay and screens”, drawing on mythologies both ancient and contemporary, consonant with the musical mixture of ancient and futuristic sounds. The dramatic and dark rendering of our present times and the destruction of nature is accompanied by alluring evocations of a better future, visions of coexistence with nature, as in “Invisible City” and “Naturocentric”. The sense of mystery deepens in “Heal”, where ancient Middle Eastern rhythms create an engrossing ritualistic atmosphere, and in the stylish journey from the darkness of night to daylight and hope in “Twilight of the Dawn”.
The sense of mystery and awe is even present in the most activist songs on the album, “On Fire”, which speaks about deforestation and global warming and “Where We Belong”, which is a hymn to the Earth itself and the ground under our feet, which resists and welcomes us even after human destruction and domination as we strive to learn a deeper appreciation of our surroundings and fellow creatures. Equally powerful is “The Machine” which addresses exploitation of animals and industrial alienation, in a powerful and emotionally captivating song. In the end, it is all about “The Beauty of All Things”, which is the title of an irresistible and immersive song composed of Inanna’s layered vocals, a-cappella, inviting us to reverently receive the natural world as a gift and a responsibility.
“Acrotopia”, Inanna tells us, is not an escape from fearful dystopias into fantasies of an unattainable utopia, but rather a “higher place” which always lies waiting one step in the right direction. The songs of Acrotopia combine like a perfect pop suite and an overture to Inanna’s ongoing project: to musically combine ancient tradition and future imaginings, to draw nature into the center of culture and to combine emotionally charged music with activism.
