October 15, 2020 | 0 Comments

AMANDALA – STRONGER EP is at Top 200 Radio Now!!!

Meet my new pal, AMANDALA! This is a really cool Seattle-based artist, who actually came my way via Julia Massey, the bandleader of the also Seattle-based and wonderful Band Mom artist Warren Dunes. But another cool thing about AMANDALA (stage name of artist Amanda Lamprecht) is that she’s originally from South Africa! You can totally hear the accent in her singing voice and everything. Extremely cool. (Adding to my intensely international roster here; between New Zealand, Sweden, and South Africa [plus my many American artists], The Band Mom has got four whole continents represented in 2021!!! Waow.) She’s also a yoga teacher who went to law school. AMANDALA contains multitudes. Her voice/vocal delivery gives off strong Cranberries or even sometimes Björk vibes, and her musical style ranges from 90s-ish singer-songwriter a la Natalie Imbruglia to more adventurous, dream-pop kinda stuff like say Sia or Dido. She’s all about empowerment, tapping into your strength, and oneness with the universe. (Very in line with her yogi profession.) It’s refreshingly optimistic and sweet while still adding something new to the musical conversation. I think you’ll like it, give it a whirl! I promise this isn’t a permanent state of things for the Band Mom, but this is indeed my third add in a row which is entirely digital only, so don’t wait for a hard copy – please feel free to reach out if you’re at a radio station and didn’t get the download, and get into the happy whimsical world of AMANDALA!!

AMANDALA

STRONGER EP

Self-Released

AMANDALA is a Seattle-based singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and yogi born in Cape Town, South Africa. Amanda Lamprecht adopted the stage name AMANDALA because it sounds like the word “mandala”, which is a Sanskrit name that literally means “circle”. A Mandala is a tool in many spiritual traditions to aid a practitioner to inner states of wholeness.

AMANDALA’s third professional studio release, Stronger, is aimed at the concept of coming full circle and stepping into one’s power. The short album of 7 songs is a picturesque musical landscape in a style that draws influences from indie pop and indie folk-rock.

AMANDALA’s songwriting and voice has been compared to the likes of Björk and The Cranberries, and her songs dictate both raw edge and crystal sweetness.

AMANDALA is a world traveler who lived on three continents, traveled the globe to study yoga and holds a Law Degree from Nelson Mandela University. She played violin from the age of 6 and sang in many school choirs throughout her life, but it was not until she moved to the US that she started to play in goth and punk rock bands and write her own music. Between 2008-2012 she self-released two experimental albums, Tanzanite and Make This Real, for which she did all the instrumentation herself. In 2015 she teamed up with producer and co-owner of London Bridge studio, Jonathan Plum, to co-write her first professional studio album Far and Wide in a dream pop style. Andrew Joslyn, violinist for Macklemore, and Davey Brozowski, traveling drummer for Modest Mouse, played on Far and Wide.

In the same year, AMANDALA also wrote her first ever Afrikaans album, Alles wat jy lief het, in an indie pop, folk rock style. The Afrikaans album was recorded at Earwig Studios in Seattle, working with studio owner Don Farwell, and completed in South Africa. “Two albums on Two Continents in Three studios in One year” became the tagline for a 5-month music promotion trip to South Africa from October 2016 – March 2017.

Her newest EP, Stronger, was an international project. Musicians from Seattle and South Africa played on this album. The recording for Stronger began at Earwig Studios in Seattle, before continuing its journey in Stellenbosch, South Africa at Sunset Recording Studio. Coming full circle, the songs were mastered by Ed Brooks from Resonant Mastering (Death Cab for Cutie, Fleet Foxes, Courtney Marie Andrews, The Head and the Heart) back home in Seattle.

A music video was released for the song “Let’s Not Leave This Life Broken” from Stronger, and received 2000 views in only 2 weeks. The video is a request for universal unity and friendship, filled with images that are profoundly colorful and watery, with a thumbnail that is Frida Kahlo inspired. Another music video will be released in mid-October 2020 for the song “Flow” that will feature more water and ocean scenes. “Flow” is a musical sketch of a river building till it finally reaches the ocean, so the vocals are sparse and it doesn’t follow cookie cutter song structures.

AMANDALA’s intention with Stronger was to write songs that make one feel empowered, more connected, songs that encourage, that reflect. The songs convey all the attributes of water. Water is fluid, moody and emotional. Water can be powerful, loud, still or reflective. Water can be hard when it is ice, or it can be weightless when it becomes steam. Just as water does not have a form, but it takes the form of its container, so it was AMANDALA’s intent that her music does not sit in one specific genre, but rather capture a fluid mood which is different from song to song and album to album.