A Personal Quest

"Alternative, experimental, dark, hopeful and complex," says Anaida of her new album Quest. To her, Quest is exactly that -- a very personal search for musical growth.

While every album is unique, this one is very special for Anaida. Quest is India's first international album by a female Indi-pop singer. To be released shortly by various top labels in half a dozen European countries, this is a truly international album: it was recorded in Greece and Brussels, mixed in Belgium and mastered in the Netherlands. It was produced by American producer Joey Balin, who has projects for acts like Boyzone and 2Unlimited to his credit.

Anaida hopes that long-time fans will be surprised and pleased by the album's unique sound, which is completely different from anything she has done in past. Quest is a 'maxi-CD' -- an extended single -- which features three original songs. The title track 'Quest' was originally composed by Ashutosh Pathak for the soundtrack of the movie Bombay Boys. For this album, the song was re-recorded and produced afresh. The seemingly dark 'Good Day to Die' was inspired by the Red Indian tradition of celebrating death not birth. The third song 'Faith is Love' is a trance track, influenced by Indian music. The Indian release contains a bonus song -a duet with Greek mega-star and classical pianist Stefanos Korkolis, who wrote the song for Anaida and named it after her. The song, sung in both Greek and Hindi, was originally released in Greece in 1997 and went gold.

With Quest, which took three years to make, Anaida says she was able to fulfill some long-held desires. She entered a new phase musically by moving out of the Indi-pop genre (although she has experimented with various styles within that category in the past). As an English-language album, Quest is not aimed at the masses. Still, "I thought Indian audiences were as ready as I was for something different," says Anaida, adding, "For a musician, there is nothing more exciting than exploring new styles."

Quest also allowed Anaida to get behind the camera to direct the video for the title track. Retaining footage from the previous video shot for the Bombay Boys project, she then re-shot and re-edited the video to suit the song's fresh version. She says, "This song was so personal and there were so many things I wanted to convey both visually and musically, that it just seemed best to do it myself."

ENDS