So here’s another artist we’ve never featured before, and pretty remiss of us that is too. Anna Leone is from Sweden, and she’s made a pretty whopping impression since she released her debut EP ‘Wandered Away’ back in 2018.. Now she’s just returned with a new song entitled ‘Once’, and I’m pretty certain that you’ll all love this.
She was raised in a large family in the suburbs of Stockholm and on a musical diet of Nina Simone and Bob Dylan, but individually was always private and quiet, a Marvel and sci-fi obsessive, and it sounds like she loved the solitude of learning the guitar and her favourite songs as a teenager. A small French label picked up her debut song in 2017, and since then she’s had incredible (and well deserved coverage) on Radio 6 and on Spotify playlists – literally millions of streams for her early tracks.
‘Once’ is a stunning song. Clearly Anna Leone is not the type of artist who demands attention, but her music resonates so genuinely and immediately I found myself turning up the volume on my speakers to catch every word. The sentences just tumble into each other, all so cleverly written, whilst her voice is so calm and soothing. Just timeless and beautiful, music for anyone and everyone to connect with.
Anyway, she explains more about the track, and about filming the video in the Azores.
“The narrative loop comes from the idea of being stuck in your ways, going through the same patterns, but then choosing to break out of that and do things differently. Towards the end I reconcile with the past, symbolised by the little girl. I choose to embrace what once was in order to move forward. It was incredible getting to shoot the video in that beautiful environment. The weather was really unpredictable - we went through almost all four seasons in one day.”
She should come and do the next video in Manchester, we really don’t have that ‘four seasons in one day’ issue. No suitcase dilemmas either, just bring a rain jacket.
Clearly she’s an artist who really thinks about her releases, so I suspect she’s in no rush to churn out new songs. Really looking forward to whatever she might do next though.
If you like Anna Leone, check out our review of Swedish indie folk artist Ocean Onyx, who has also just released a new single.