Hania Rani - Nostalgia Live (Vinyl 2LP + 12" 16p Booklet)

This is what happens when a record release turns into something else entirely. On 6 October 2023, the day Ghosts came out, Hania Rani played a concert in the Witold Lutosławski Concert Studio at Polish Radio in Warsaw, a building she has been walking into since she was a student at the Chopin University of Music and where she made her first recordings in late 2018, just before Esja. Nostalgia is that night, captured in full, with one addition: the title track, taken from her performance at the Roundhouse in London.

The expansion is the point. Rani is joined by her regular collaborator Ziemowit Klimek on double bass and synthesizer, and by a string ensemble that opens the pieces outward, giving them more air above and more weight beneath. Her own playing sits at the centre, keyboards and drum machine and voice, but the arrangements let the material stretch into the hall rather than staying close to the piano.

The physical package leans into the same idea of place. Rani shot analogue photographs of the Polish Radio studios herself, and the 12" 16-page booklet printed on art paper presents them alongside the music, the first time she has brought her visual and sonic work together in one release. Recorded by Agata Dankowska and Viktor Orri Árnason, mastered by Peter Beckmann, designed by Veil Projects with layout by Nicola Cholewa. Pressed on double black BioVinyl in a Pantone-printed reverse board sleeve, with hand-etched runouts.