A labour of Love
Copenhagen / Berlin composer and manysided vocalist Zola Mennenöh returns with quietly smoldering new album A Labour of Love, a study of elegant, breathy, subtly experimental balladry that binds Baroquian pop, spoken word, and sound design into expressive songcraft.
Compelled to create a work exploring “the combination of extreme fragility and extreme strength.” Mennenöh speaks of asking “how to stand up for my beliefs, without needing to fight so hard, or so loudly. I wanted to be soft in communicating my truth - and yet allow myself to express my anger, and encounter the more messy sides of freeing yourself from conventions.” These themes are gracefully and artfully revealed over the duration of new album A Labour of Love, whose syntheses of delicacy and potency, of organic and digital, of songform and freeform, sculpts, in Mennenöh’s description, an iceberg hewn from silk.
All Music and Lyrics written by Zola Mennenöh
Produced by Zola Mennenöh, Shahzad Ismaily & Luka Aron
Mixed by Luka Aron
Mastered by Helge Sten
Perfomed by:
Zola Mennenöh - vocals, synth (Track 1)
Simon Toldam - piano, synths
Pernille Kristiansen - violin
Mika Persdotter - viola
Nicole Hogstrand - cello
Guests:
Sissi Rada - harp (Track 2)
Adelein Strei - flute (Track 5), clarinet (Track 8)
Shahzad Ismaily - synths (Track 8), drums (Track 1)
Malika Ismaily - voice (Track 11)
Recorded by August Wanngren at The Village Recording Copenhagen
String Recordings by Sebastian Vinther at DKDM, Copenhagen
Additional Recordings by Michael Coleman at Figure 8 Recordings Brooklyn
Photos by Malwa Grabowska/Hipermania
Cover design by Zola Mennenöh
Layout by Malwa Grabowska/Hipermania & Tomo Jacobson