Ana Patan Releases New Album With Jonas Hellborg, Devin Townsend, and Jonathan Herrera on Bass

The latest album from the German singer/songwriter was 10 years in the making and enlists some serious bass talent

Ana Patan Releases New Album With Jonas Hellborg, Devin Townsend, and Jonathan Herrera on Bass

The latest album from the German singer/songwriter was 10 years in the making and enlists some serious bass talent

German singer/songwriter Ana Patan has just released latest album, Spice, Gold, and Tales Untold. The record was ten years in the making, as Patan wrote over 100 songs in that span before narrowing the track list down to 10. In keeping with the authentic analog sound she was envisioning, she tracked everything onto tape reels and edited the mixes down using razor blades, a la production pre-1980’s era. 

To handle the low end on the release, Patan enlisted longtime collaborators Jonas Hellborg (John McLaughlin, Bill Laswell, Ginger Baker), guitarist/producer Devin Townsend, and Jonathan Herrera (Cathedrals, Miguel Migs). 

“This is the album I’ve always wanted to make! No compromise, and a mind of its own… it grew beyond what I would have dared to imagine, says Patan. “The making of it took about a decade from start to finish, it meant a long process of evolving as a human being in order to be able to express these things musically. Out of about one hundred, twenty songs were recorded, in a few versions each, the good old analog way, on 2 inch tape, not without the inherent hardships. Ten pieces convinced their way onto the record in the end, boiled down from 13 large tape reels, of a total weight of about 100 kg (~220 lbs).”

“Performed as in a live setting, with very simple instrumentation – just drums, bass, guitar and vocals – and almost no effects, compression or EQ, they’re meant to sound as natural, raw and dynamic as if the three of us would be performing right in front of you, in the same room. We don’t even follow a metronome, letting everything breathe in a natural pulse. No tricks, nothing there to impress, but the song itself. And some pretty good drumming and bass playing! You’re listening to San Francisco multitalent Jonathan Herrera, Zoltan Csörsz of Flower Kings fame, Jamal Evans on percussion…”

“None less than Jonas Hellborg put down most of the bass tracks, plus invaluable knowledge, advice and assistance on the old-school way to make a record!
And, yes, Devin Townsend himself found his way to the studio and kept contributing personal wisdom on how to ‘just put the whole thing out there and move on!'”  

Purchase the album: HERE

About Ana Patan

Ana Patan is a German songwriter, singer and instrumentalist of Romanian origins who blends a variety of cultures and styles in a witty and elegant music statement, congenial and familiar, still difficult to place.

Her main instrument is electric guitar, and her style has been described as “world-influenced grooving rock-jazz, alternative inflected, prog-related, at 33 ⅓” (Radio Eclectic).

Ana was born in Romania, during the Ceausescu communist regime, remembered for depriving citizens of their most basic needs for food, electricity, current water but even more, freedom of expression or political truth. During her childhood Ana started writing songs for the neighbourhood kids on a borrowed guitar, with chords half stolen from her older brother.
In her late teens, as she continued with her school into the Economics university and moved to Bucharest, things started to take off in her music and, with the winning of a notable national festival-contest, she ended up in the media’s attention and performing on some of the country’s largest stages, surrounded by many of her music idols.

Following a lifetime dream of exploring the rest of the world, Ana went on to break the patterns of her personal and musical growth by crossing the national borders and getting aquainted for the next seven years with the art of guitar playing, jazz theory, composition and sound engineering, at several academies in Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin. She studied guitar with Mike Stern and Regi “The Teacha” Wooten, amongst others.  

Most of her musical knowledge though came from real life interaction and playing with accomplished musicians from across the globe, thus getting an insight into their passion, attitude, behaviour and values.

During this time Ana was active in different music projects, such as Jazzmachine (Stefan Zaradic, Abi von Reinighaus, Thomas Lui Ludwig, Benno Sattler, Andreas Keller, Christian Felke, Thorsten Skringer, Christoph Viktor Kaiser), with which she recorded an album (Moongroove, 2009) and a live DVD (2005).

Ana contributed as a composer in the film production “Rosenstiehl”, as well as on an audio series created for the relaxation and preparation of flight pilots. Her guitar lines and songwriting are also to be found on albums by Vince (Neherlands), John Denner (USA), Harrison Fjord, etc.

Ana Patan was the guitar player and vocalist of Triple Sweet, an all-girls band with a rather eclectic lineup of accordion, blues harp and electric guitar.

For more on Ana: Click Here 

Jon D'Auria   By: Jon D'Auria