Ana Lola Roman is a 29-year old Performance Artist and Multi-Instrumentalist. She travels between Brooklyn, New York and Berlin, Germany. Originally from a very small town in Oklahoma She has been an accomplished pianist since age 6 and has since toured Europe & The USA. It is not easy to categorize Ana Lola Roman's music, but one could say it transports beyond the realm of the here and now. Ana invokes a feeling of walls crumbling, worlds forming, and futures turning. The atmospheres and intense grooves that Ana composes are generated by drum machines, pianos, bass guitar, and synthesizers which Ana programs with the help of Producer Jeff Donaldson, former member of the acclaimed Noise Band Wzt Hearts and current brain behind the project
Notendo.With the help of Atari S-T, Hardware synthesizers, and additional guitars by Donaldson, Roman joined the producer in Berlin’s Friedrichshain district in July 2009 and recorded her current project. Some will be surprised to know a few of her songs were created and recorded in the hidden landmark of TEUFELSBERG, an abandoned CIA station located outside of Berlin.
Aside from secret bunker recording spaces, Roman’s conceptual background leads her to work on projects with many different directors, photographers, and video artists. She can assume many roles and identities depending on the performance or the song. Roman is intensely visual and her songs read like soundtracks and sound like visual atmospheres.
In 2008 she toured Germany and made a short film with Hamburg-based director, Sonke Held for Ana's song “Sparrow.” from "Pearls on the Hook." Later in 2008 she also toured the U.S. and appeared in numerous Music Festivals on the East Coast. In September of 2009 Roman teamed up with Berlin-Based Video Installation Artist Daniela Gast to choreograph and co-compose a piece for Berlin’s elections and became her own “dance Installation” for ART FAIR BERLIN.
Roman has participated in the CMJ Music Festival in New York City. Her songs have been featured in the film Two Blue Wolves . She has appeared on WMFU, WNYC, and East Village radio, along with other radio stations around the United States including a live performance and interview on acclaimed NPR affiliate WUTC 88.1fm in Chattanooga TN. Television appearances include "The Ed Schrader Show" which airs in Baltimore, and Washington D.C. and other cable access channels.
PRESS AND REVIEWS
“Ana Lola Roman's Canon of surreal songs, contradictory stylings, and Japanese music box hi-jinks won't let anyone get too comfortable in their seats on any night. Ana evokes a Thelonious Monk dancing with Joplin, Latin flourishes gone acidic. Her voice teeters from high Edith Piaf ecstasy to low Bowie-esque swagger, onwards towards a Nina Hagen schizophrenia. Her stage prowess is both withdrawn, unpredictable, and down right delicious."
~GAWKER.COM. 2007
“ITS SORT OF DAVID LYNCH MEETS THE CENTIMETERS”
~MOMUS, recording artist and founder of imomus.com
"Ana is making a name for herself as the new name in production and performance. She plays a thoughtful, bugged out electro that joins disparate sounds with solid grooves, and from time to time, a haunting vocal."
-Andrew W.K. - NYC
Ana Lola Roman is a Brooklyn synth-pop gem by way of Oklahoma who frequently pops up in Baltimore and Berlin, leaving a trail of lavishly strange dance performances and videos wherever she travels.
- Mishka Bloglin - NYC
Ana Lola Roman and her lavishly strange, fluttering synth-pop caught my ear a while ago after I noticed she had shows coming up and soundly confirmed her talents as an instrumentalist, uniquely tremelo-heavy vocalist, and magnetic stage personality.
- Nate Dorr Impose Magazine - NYC
Ana Lola Roman: Animated and unusual synth-pop, cavorting on stage with a certain charisma and lightly darting fingers for both keyboard and guitar.
- IMPOSE MAGAZINE- NYC
Ana Lola Roman Avant garde art rocker from NYC comes to radicalize the southeast with her Primal beats and Kate Bush meets Public Image Limited vocals, keyboard and percussion work. A psychedelic nursery rhyme or two could be tossed in for good balance.
- Robin Merritt, ArtFRONT Presentations
Ana Lola Roman's experimental electropop will leave quite the impression on you. This lady from Brooklyn "writes bizarre musical fairytales, driven by off-kilter piano, synths, and her unique vocal style".
- DISCONAIVETE
"Brooklyn’s Ana Lola Roman brings shiny, geometrically-complex dance beats that echo off walls around her enticing, otherworldly voice. A slinky treat, Roman’s vocals come in clipped and choppy over the helicopter-like rhythms of her pianos and keyboards. "
-GAWKER.COM
"Roman weaves abstract lyrics into obtuse keyboards and percussion caressed performance rock. It takes a while to warm up to her Lori Anderson inspired adventurism but Roman has the musical knack to keep it from becoming artsy fartsy schtick. Whether performing in art galleries or saloons Roman is intriguing."
- CREATIVE LOAFING, Charlotte, NC
"The bell-like tones of her voice nervously vibrate and hover
somewhere between mythological ice queen and living theremin."
- JEZEBELMUSIC.COM
"Ana Lola Roman has soundly confirmed her talents as an instrumentalist, with her uniquely tremelo-heavy vocal style and magnetic stage personality with the moves to prove it...."
-IMPOSE MAGAZINE, New York
"This German/Spanish/Oklahoma Hybrid is Best known for tracks Sparrow, Some Volatile Shit Man, WaterTaxi, Temple Of Cats and WaterTaxi....Much like Laurie Anderson, Danielle Dax, Gang Gang Dance and Rainbow Arabia with elements like an eerie piano/synth and quivering vocal melodies, this artist, performance artist, singer, multi-instrumentalist, whatever you want to call her, always delivers the unexpected....."
-IN MADRID MAGAZINE, Madrid, Spain
"Ana Lola Roman Wants in Your Head..."
- Casey Phillips CHATTANOOGA TIMES FREE PRESS
"Look out for Ana Lola Roman! She’s like the punk-rock*, real life version of Uma Thurman’s character in Pulp Fiction. She even dances like her.
"
- HOOVES ON THE TURF, New York
Magazine Article: Interview with Ana Lola Roman from "Cheap & Plastique" magazine by VIOLET SHURAKA
“ An atomic bomb went off in her keyboards and she plays like she just short-circuited.
~DIRTY GLAM MAGAZINE , March, 08 UK/ France.
“I saw Ana Lola Roman live, at Luna Lounge. For me Ana Lola has been an enigma since she first appeared. I was drawn to her left of center approach to song writing and abstract lyrical style. Live, her piano and vocals take the lead to a laid-back rhythm section. This evening Ana sat at her piano and sang but the set still had theatrical feel to it. She defies comparison as a songwriter but the songs are so unexpectedl, and have such a genuine quality that it is nearly impossible to look away while she is performing, which is a testament to her originality.
~ERIC STEINER, "Crappy Advice" magazine, 2007
“ She writes bizarre musical fairytales, driven by off-kilter piano, synths, and her unique vocal style. Her music is very unusual -- for me, it conjures mental images reminiscent of Jan Svankmajer's Alice, one of those visually abstract films which has seared a couple great scenes into my mind.
~GREGG IPPS, "Vice" magazine, 2006
Stage Plot / Inputs
For Winter & Spring 2010 Ana will be solo. She requires 2 Mics (2 VOCAL INS) and 2 Microphone stands 1 boom & 1 straight, plus one keyboard Stand. She will have her laptop for backing tracks which must be plugged into the board and Her Midi Keyboard which she will play live, plugged into the laptop. She will need 2DI's
Publicity and Promotion
Contact the address at left for promotional info, artist interviews, high res photos for print media and demo recordings.
