We Speak Music
Rebekka Louise Delivers Masterful Album ‘Shame Is An Old Friend’
The new album “Shame Is An Old Friend,” by the up-and-coming experimental pop star Rebekka Louise, is incredibly personal and experimental. It was released recently. From a master’s thesis, it has developed into an extensive study of mental health and how it affects reality on the inside as well as the outside. The album is guaranteed to captivate listeners with its candid exploration of the challenges faced by those grappling with mental health concerns and the journeys of their loved ones.
“Shame Is An Old Friend” bravely tackles depressive and guilty sentiments as well as the often challenging process of making one’s own decisions. It also emphasises the delicate tug-of-war between relationships and emotional turmoil. Rebekka’s unshakeable self-expression is captured in the words of each of the eight tunes, which are honest and unvarnished. Rebekka has created a distinctive sound that is both creative and emotionally impactful, drawing influence from a wide variety of musicians such as Madison Beer, Billie Eilish, The Neighbourhood, Aurora, and Maria Mena.
The album explores the complexities of electronica primarily, with live string passages that intertwine with the soundscape to produce a complex and engrossing listening experience. Rebekka’s outstanding vocal performance is one of “Shame Is An Old Friend”‘s most notable aspects. Her voice lends a genuine authenticity to each track as it expertly navigates and transmits the complex emotional terrain of the album with astounding depth and clarity. Rebekka’s remarkable skill is brought to light by her passionate delivery and impressive vocal range, which engross listeners in the personal and heartbreaking realm of her songs.
A high standard is set for what’s to come from this gifted artist with her hauntingly beautiful debut, “Shame Is An Old Friend.”
Michele Ducci has unveiled the second single, ‘Woman Like You’, from his forthcoming album and animated film ‘Snail in the Clouds’.
‘Woman Like You’ pairs bright distorted electric guitar with an electronic drumbeat, adding in Ducci’s soulful vocals and a catchy uplifting chorus with Letizia Mandoleisi’s sweet vocal harmonies. A vintage organ pedalboard operated by Ducci simultaneously generates chords, bass and rhythm, like a one-man band. Shane Kennedy (Girl in the Year Above) joins in on guitar. Simon Milner (Is Tropical, Ysing) recorded and produced the track at his 4am Studios in London.
The album and film tell the story of a planet called ‘Snail’, inhabited by hybrids – primarily a mixture between scorpions, snails and humans – who lead a life according to the style of Pythagoras, devoted to music. There is also a cloud man named Agostos, a writer of musical operettas, who together with a talking smoke machine called Doctor Subtilis, begins to kill all hybrids, targeting in particular the hybrid musician Diodoros and his band, in an effort to steal the ark of melodies, an ancient ship that allows the whole planet to survive with music and joy.
The video for the single, created and animated by Ducci and Mandoleisi, delves further into the realm of planet ‘Snail’:
Says Ducci, “The ark of melodies, after various attempts, finally starts to work and fly in the planet Snail, while the shady Doc. Sub. and Agostos, with their platoon of soldiers made of foggy smoke, spy the miracle, planning to steal the ark for their evil and tyrannical purposes.”
About the track, Michele says, “I wrote this song for my love Letizia. Love seen from the mind is the sound we make. Sound is the love of matter.
We used a Technics synthesizer organ from a flea market. I tried to find a mood that was right for the song and I started using the bass of the pedal board together with the synth and the drums, and it was magical to hear the song reveal itself all coming from a single instrument. Leti was singing with me and we recorded everything live in one shot. Then we made Shane do the guitar flight, as if he came out of the window. The idea was to maintain disproportions, guitar thrust and synth drum thinness a la Haroumi Hosono, so as to create an estrangement, but naturally: it’s about how I listen, with close up something that captures me in its nuance as element of a larger orchestra somewhere. I’m glad we decided in the studio with Simon to use the layers of arrangement as the close-ups in the cinema; they look like strange enlargements that perch on parts of a mutated orchestra. I’m happy to come back with this love song at a time when everything seems to opt, even my labor in managing the flows of selfishness that have poured out on me while doing this album, for the sound of war. I’m here happy to be able to say that the sound of love always wins as did for me. Snail in the clouds is one of the most important works in my life and I am glad to start from pure love for this album that is my son.”
The album and full-length film will be released on the 5th of June on Monotreme Records.
Michele and Letizia’s previous musical short film, ‘The Great Book of Nature’, is an official selection for the 2026 Venice Shorts Film Festival.
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