Hey darlings, here’s the next chapter of my ‘Back-Catalogue’ project.  This time it’s the song called ‘Ann A One’ from the same first demo-album of T-Lazarus – ‘Under The Green’, released as a DIY demo CD in the end of 2002. The song itself, though, was one of the first tracks I had recorded for the release – perhaps even the very first one? I am not sure any longer, but it could be.. I still remember very well though what it was all about. I was 16 when I wrote and produced this track. At that time I still identified myself as bisexual and had a girlfriend named – guess? – yes, Anna! During the time of our relationship her father passed away from cancer and she was in a very difficult state after that, obviously. I felt helpless in that situation and I also felt, that something had been broken between us. Soon after we broke up and she started dating a friend of mine. We all stayed friends after that (and still are, in fact!), it was a pretty drama-less situation in the end of it all, but I had an urge to process it through music, so I sat down and wrote this song. Now that I hear the track, I think that I’d rather have written the lyrics with more attention to detail and less cliche-ed, but that’s also a part of my artistic way and nobody gets anywhere without making mistakes, so be it – I take it as it is. As you can imagine, I was a pretty gothic teenager (gosh, I wish I could find any photos from that era, but everything was analogue so none of that stuff is anywhere on my HDs). One of the authors that I loved at that time was Edgar Allan Poe, so in order to spice up my awkward writing I used a fragment of his amazing poem ‘Dream-Land’, that I read in the song’s bridge: By a route obscure and lonely, Haunted by ill angels only, Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT, On a black throne reigns upright, I have wandered home but newly From this ultimate dim Thule. 1844 ‘Dream-Land’ by Edgar Allan Poe I suppose this addition to the song was my way to give a feeling of traveling between life and death and to explain, that I do believe that there’s still a connection between the living and the dead. Poe biographer Arthur Hobson Quinn called it “one of [Poe’s] finest creations”, with each phrase contributing to one effect: a human traveler wandering between life and death. Musically – I must admit – I am still pretty proud about the way the song sounds. It was a pretty scrupulous process of making it – first all the live parts were recorded, and then I was cutting out samples from two compositions of Kronos Quartet, that I later processed through a sampler and placed those parts into the mix. So here’s where the beautiful strings come – I love the coda especially. If you are not familiar with the quartet – they are definitely worth checking out! https://kronosquartet.org Much love, Gene...