Rosie Red.
Rough Trade Exclusive.
With Exclusive Flexi.
Limited to 200 copies.
Catalog Number: LPNW5843RT
Color: Red
Format: LP
UPC: 607396584314
When the Amsterdam singer-songwriter Jana Mila (pronounced Yah-nuh MEE-
lah) began writing a song called "Chameleon," she thought she was writing about
someone else--a friend who seemed to be changing her colors to please other
people. "But the more I lived with the song, the more I felt like I was writing about
myself," she admits. "Doesn't everybody try to reflect other people? Don't I change
my own colors in order to be accepted? Especially when you're young, you can lose
yourself in other people if you don't know who you are."
That is the central idea behind her debut album, also titled Chameleon, which
introduces Mila as an artist deeply committed to self-reckoning and self-possession.
Our innate desire to belong and to be loved can lead to a kind of self-annihilation,
making us strangers to ourselves. Writing songs is her means of finding and
sustaining her identity."The album is a conversation with myself, a way of getting
to know myself better. There are little fears woven into every lyric, but there's also
advice to myself. I'm writing to find a part of myself that has some wisdom."
Musically, Mila is the best kind of chameleon. The album draws from a wild array
of sources, entertaining new ideas on every song: dusty Laurel Canyon folk on
"It's True," catchy Nashville country on "Let Me In," driving '70s rock on "I Wasn't
Gonna." She puts her stamp on every note, turning those fears into an album
of remarkable confidence, eloquence, and power. Chameleon is a self-portrait
rendered in vibrant detail.