Randy
New York City-based electro singer-songwriter Ciao! Introduces his new single, “Vampire,” a track lifted from his upcoming album, Scary Haha, set to release in August. Twenty percent of gross streaming/sales will be donated to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Talking about the album, Ciao! shares, “This is more than a harmonic version of a ‘cancer memoir.’ In one sense, it’s a factual diary of a personal disaster. But it’s also an admission and celebration of the various thoughts and feelings that arise when things like mortality and disability spring up to stare us in the face.”
Shrouded in anonymity, Ciao! reveals his battle with illness, treatment, recovery, and uncertainty, all interlaced with pain, love, fear, and hope. In May of 2020, after a final round of chemotherapy, Ciao! left the clinic as a team of socially distanced nurses blew bubbles and cheered, a gesture inspiring the release of the first single, “Mayday in E Major,” from the album.
According to Ciao!, “When I got some of my energy back, I felt as if I absolutely had to finish these tracks and meld them into an album.”
Ciao!’s sound blends influences from NYC’s indie, orchestral, jazz, pop, and world music scenes into uniquely innovative music reflective of TV on the Radio, Gershwin, and The Cure.
“Vampire” opens on low-slung sensual tones riding syncopated percussion and a thumping kick-drum. Ciao!’s delicate, exotic-laced, dreamy vocals infuse the lyrics with melancholic timbres. Multiple harmonic leitmotifs give the melody a mysterious aura and flow.
“A vampire wakes as the shade is shrinking all around him / Cut down like the hunted / A bird through the window knock me down, I can walk no more / Every now and then I worry: what is it made of? / The prize is cut in half / The purse is tax / The pain is more than fair / My kingdom to stop eating me.”
On one level, “Vampire” is dark, almost portentous, while on another level, strangely alluring and hypnotic, like a sonic invocation.
