Techno Maven ANNA Talks ‘Journey To The Underworld,’ Ambient Music And Energy Healing

Techno tastemaker ANNA is known for her distinct seductive, transfixing and hard-hitting sound. The Brazilian-bred artist graces the stages of famed festivals and renowned clubs around the world. The producer cut her teeth at the age of 14 when she developed her passion for dance music. She drops critically acclaimed music on virtually every significant label in techno, including Hotflush, Drumcode, NovaMute, Clash Lion, Sapiens, Domino with her Jon Hopkins remix and now Tale of Us’ Afterlife. Indeed, the techno star proves to be an icon within her genre.

Today, January 21, ANNA releases her Journey to the Underworld EP. The three-track body of work proves to be texturally diverse, offering captivating sounds, elements of ambient music, enchanting soundscapes, pulsing beats designed for dance floor domination and more, showcasing it as a beautiful and masterfully-produced EP. 

Here, multifaceted creative ANNA shares balancing sounds of techno and ambient music, energy healing, her Anaweh Studio Masterclass and more. 

Kocay: Can you describe your sound in three words?

ANNA: “Energy, connection and release. It would be one more with love, but releases are more appropriate because you are dancing so much and you’re jumping. It’s like a big release.”

Kocay: What was the inspiration for Journey to the Underworld?

ANNA: “I didn’t have any inspiration before going to the studio. I was trying sounds and see what happened. As I listened to the sound, each sound I created gave me an idea.”

Kocay: How did you pick the name for the EP? What does Journey to the Underworld mean to you?

ANNA: “It is because it feels that the track is the journey to the underworld. The sounds are deeper. It feels for me almost like complaining, a longing for something. I also study a lot of energy healing. I did some shamanic training, so I brought this world to the name.”

Kocay: You’ve recently been balancing your techno productions with ambient music because of your love for ambient music. Can you talk about the inspiration behind this fusion and what draws you to ambient music?

ANNA: “I used to like ambient music before COVID, but it was not something that I explored myself doing before COVID. But before quarantine, there was something that I wanted to work on, but I didn’t have time for it. I was doing so much. I was focusing so much on my career that I couldn’t stop to see what it was. And then during the lockdown, I had the time to explore, to make music without pressure to be released or to please the people, the crowd. Because before COVID I used to make music that I was going to play on the dance floor, so I was totally focused on that.

“So during that time I started to explore more with instruments, with the sound healing I was studying before COVID and then everything came together. So there are some instruments that are very healing to me, like piano and the flute. And then I started to explore more with melodies, with ambient music and merging the sound healing with the music because some healing in frequency is one thing and music is another. And I tried to merge these two worlds.

“I [collaborated] with East Forest, one of the artists that I like the most in ambient music, but it was because I think the technical sound is more energetic. It is what I like to play at night in clubs, but there is this side, the other side that is more contemporary, more introspective that I use more to connect with myself. It is like a prayer to me. Sometimes I was praying at my altar and I couldn’t find the words to put me in a certain state, but when I put the music on it brings me where I need to go with my emotions. So that’s how I use ambient music, how I use some healing. Ambient music that I am putting out, it was in the beginning for me, for myself, for my journey, for my connection, for my healing. And then as long as I was getting myself in this world and the music that I was creating, then I started to share with the world and opportunities to share also came to me.”

Kocay: That’s really beautiful. You launched Anaweh Studio Masterclass during COVID. Can you talk about this program and what motivated you to launch it?

ANNA: “We released it in September 2020 because I have a studio with my partner, Wehbba, but when it was just a studio where we make our tracks we didn’t offer any outside service. But then with COVID, of course, our income was completely gone, 100 percent gone for more than one year. We were looking for things to do, how we can use this space better, how we can use our abilities better and not just for ourselves. So then together with the Riel Projects, we did the master class. It was of course to have more income and to also make better use of our abilities and how others can also benefit from it.

“In the beginning, I did some tips, three hours maximum, two hours maximum of master class, but we ended up creating 10 hours of videos. It was much more than we expected. And now we have 1,500 students already that joined the program. And we are very proud of it because we got so much feedback from people that it helped them a lot. Now at least two or three [people] in every gig I play tell me they are doing the course and it’s helping them so much with their path. So it’s so nice. I didn’t expect at all when we started that there was going to be so much reward.”

Kocay: If you could go back in time to when you first started making music and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

ANNA: “Don’t worry too much trying to please others. Just do and try to translate what is in your heart and what you feel—what makes you dance, what makes you happy.”

Kocay: If you didn’t go into making music, where do you think that you’d be today?

ANNA: “Four years ago I started to go into the world of energy healing, sun healing. This is a big passion, also something that I dedicated time for, that I study a lot, that I love. I love to talk about it, meditation and mindfulness, how to take care of the brain, take care of the body. So I am in this field also, but mostly for myself, but if I was not making music, I would be doing this.”

Kocay: How did you get into energy healing, mindfulness and meditation?

ANNA: “I was always into energy. I always wanted to know how things happen energetically before physically. For example, am I sick? Why am I sick? I need to know what is happening energetically, not what is happening. I won’t go to the doctor. I want to see what is happening energetically first, but I never put attention into it. But in 2017, I went to do a brain training that is called alpha wave training. I got in touch with some emotions, some energy there and I loved this place—super open and connected, and something happened there.

“I’ve studied many kinds of meditations. I’ve done some retreats, so much training, and it is a world that really interests me. But as I told you before, about the ambient music, it was for myself, for my connection with myself and not to offer to other people, not to work with this but as part of my journey, because I was feeling so connected. I found something inside myself that was so fulfilling. I stopped wanting to please others. I stopped actually looking for love outside myself and validation because I felt that thing inside that filled me completely.”

Kocay: Do you have a favorite type of retreat that you’ve done?

ANNA: “The one that affected me a lot and I would recommend to people is the Vipassana Center where you stay 10 days with no talking and you meditate for 10 hours.

“Even if you have never meditated before, don’t be scared with 10 hours of meditation a day. You can go through it. And it is amazing. I couldn’t recommend more.”

Kocay: For people who are starting to explore this world and get into it, what advice would you give them?

ANNA: “The first thing I tell people when they want to start meditating but they don’t know anything is find a dark place with no noise where you can stay 10 minutes and just put attention on your breath. See the breath in and out, feel the breath in your nose, how it uses the air coming in and the air coming out. And that 10, five minutes is everything you need. It depends on how you feel. Keep the practice, keep this, it’s very simple to do. You don’t have to stop your thoughts. It is normal to have a lot of thoughts, but every time you see your attention going out of the air, coming in and out of your nose, you come back to it every time. You [may] have to come back to it a thousand times.”