My Name Is Ann

MY NAME IS ANN! is a solo project of Lenka Moravkova -Knoflenka (vocals, saxophone, children piano, midi keyboard) for more than a year now, she has been playing together with the singer and keyboardist Sarka Kobzova (children piano, synth, vocals) at live shows. The second album called The World Is My Oyster captures the authors crucial themes of the last two years, turning them into full-blown epic compositions, dealing with such subjects as de-formation by places and relationships, ecology of ones own life, wandering in the open, city as a social trap, perception through technologies and touch of hands, rural tunes and honking cars at a crossing. What life conditions are we willing to adapt to?
First compositions were recorded by Knoflenka in 2008 at a summer house in Hlasna Treban near Prague; more recent songs were recorded in Huesca, Spain, during her artist-in-residence scholarship in the spring of 2009. The album was mixed and mastered by New York-based hip hop producer Nick Coolidge and danielle Warman, in Rogue Pop Studios and Chiller Sound (www.roguepop.com) except for Ambuluwawa, mixed by Berlin-based glitch hopper Phon.o (Shitkatapult label), and Toothpick, mixed by Jan P. Muchow. The current visual form of the shows is co-created by Eva Chudomelova, Vj Screen Saver and KnofLenka. The album will be released as a digital download at www.mynameisann.com for the price chosen by the customer.

MNIANN! transgresses the fixed genre boundaries, crossing various art forms and music styles, which results in their unique, hard-to-define sound. Connecting children Cassio keyboards with glitch beats, laptop with saxophone, strong vocal melodies with hip hop background, synth effects with field-recorded sounds: the key to MNIANN!s art is sensitivity, not rationality.
The first album Reciclatge was released in February 2007 by the Brno label X Production, receiving acc- laim from both music critics and fellow musicians. Over the last year, MNIANN! presented their alarming voice at artistic, progressive music and activist festivals in the Czech Republic and abroad, such as Drap Art in Barcelona, Wilsonic in Slovakia, FEMfest in Macedonia, City of Women in Lubljana, Slovenia. The bands front woman is also involved in other projects, such as Touching Huesca, created during her art residency in Huesca, Spain, Back to the Breza in Korjeric, Serbia, or The Bead, sound project about Czech border region of Jablonec her homeplace, its declining glassmaking tradition and the question of national identity.
KnofLenka has also mad music for animation movie The Conscience directed by Jan Bohuslav (awarded in Cannes 2005) and featured on saxofon in a movie The Dream directed by Milos J. Kohout (International festival of Karlovy Vary)
For the moment, MNIANN! is about presenting her second release both in Czech republic and abroad.
INFO:
www.mynameisann.com www.myspace.com/mniann