Hania Rani is a pianist, composer and musician who splits her life between Warsaw, where she makes her home, and Berlin where she studied and often works.

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Drawing on influences from Chopin & Schostakovitch to Esbjorn Svensson, Miles Davis and Radiohead, she has written for strings, piano, voice and electronics and has collaborated with the likes of Christian Löffler, Dobrawa Czocher and Hior Chronik.

And last year she released an album with her Polish group tęskno.

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Rani has also performed at some of the most prestigious venues in Europe-from the

National Philharmony in Warsaw, to Funkhaus in Berlin, to TheRoundhouse in London (where she made her debut at the Gondwana 10th anniversary festival last October) and at festivals such as Open’er, Scope Festival and Eurosonic.

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Esja is her debut solo album and for Rani it is her first, real, personal statement as an

artist.

“No hiding behind the "collaborations" or "projects" anymore. For the very first time, finally-just me, as I am”. 

Recorded at Rani’s apartment in Warsaw (the piano room has a beautiful reverb and the space has become part art studio and part sound laboratory for Rani) and at her friend Bergur Þórisson’s studio in Reykjavik, Esja is a series of beautiful melodic vignettes, inspired by, Berlin, Iceland and the wild mountains in Bieszczady as well

as a love of art and architecture.

Sensual, sensitive, rhythmic, atmospheric, free but harmonious, beguiling and hypnotic, collectively they project a sense of unlimited space and time.

The compositions on Esja were born out of a fascination with the piano as an instrument,

and Rani’s desire to interpret its sound and harmonic possibilities in their entirety and in

her own way.

Originally, she hadn’t planned to release a solo piano album at all.

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