Recorded online on Soundtrap: https://www.soundtrap.com

Mr Tambourine Man

Big Yellow Taxi // Joni Mitchell

Walk On The Wild Side

Christmas Cacophony

Language // original (phone demo)

Lyrics:

If I don't do this
I'm gonna wreck this shot at shooting for the earth
If I don't do this
My stars are gonna wonder what it all was worth

I'm unwinding
It's getting faster and I'm trying not to fall behind me
There's a history of looking and not finding

I wanna walk with the truth
Saunter the streets un-haunted 
That I didn't set out to do what 
I want to blow me away
And not rue the day I decided what is and isn't possible

Do you hear her singing?
Can you feel the life in her body making somebody's 
Eyes well, heart well
Don't tell, oh well
My small contribution
This seed invitation
Planting bodies in moments and moments in bodies

Oh grandmother in the ground
You would say
Oh, to be twenty and have plenty of time to play
Playing is a power 
I do not need staying power 
I will die a death an hour and I'll eat them like a flower

I don't have a lot to give right now
But one day
I'll give to live
My living will be giving
My giving will be making
In making I'll be taking you up in my arms
The way I've been ushered into my own heart

By the mothers in the music
I've been mothered by the music
I will mother with this music 
(x2)

They say to make haste
Dangle their strain in front of my face 
But for now I wait
In a world that tells me to stand up and take it
I take a stand, I wait
I'll take the bait
I'll wait

Bold Song // original (phone demo)

Lion-Eyed Boy (2020)

Lyrics:

I can't be uplifted if I was never on the ground
Who has not shapeshifted
From the silence to the sound?
The mountain to the mound?
The ocean to the cloud?
Underwater, drying lake
Frozen shoulder, burning ache
Just to love, for goodness' sake

Looking glass, it's easy to forget you're made of sand
The grains don't want the hand -
Or they want, but cannot have
We are both the looked at and the looking
I'll be dammed if you can understand
But you do and so I'm happy being dammed

To be in the wake...of me
I'm everything I am and do not care to be
In the wake...of what you need to see
Put it on me

Is it wrong if it's only beautiful?
Is it beautiful if nothing's wrong?
Is it alright to string along if I'm the string and love is stringing me ?
Draw god with an eye - I'm being threaded through it
He's watching me and stitching up whoever drew it
I want to undress but will I ever do it
Just to be caught redhanded, spilling fluid?

Merge and you emerge a thing that always knew it
Wasn't made to be a being, doing being like it's doing
Hollow tree is dying to be home
To the creatures; to be loam for the blooming hollow tree
Swallow me with water, swallow sand
Pour me out the window, I'll disband
I'll land

In the wake...of me,
Caring only what the making makes of me,
And I'll rot and I'll snake and I'll spread and I'll flake and I'll fail to be
Anything that anyone thinks I can be

I'll fail,
To be free

Hollow Tree (live recording)

Society - Alice Phoebe Lou

The Fret (home demo)

Ego (live demo)

writing sessions // 'June Hymn' voice memo first draft

No Moment (demo)

lyrics: 

I've been grieving you
Since learning we all die
I asked where was your mother
They told me in the sky

I want to trust again
And you are why I might
You have no business
Loving me so wide

So I'm taking your name 
Come in from the rain
And let me warm you up in exchange
And not like a payment
That's never been an expectation 
How dare you
Love me through and through

I've buried your song
To keep me from the pain 
Of hearing your love sung 
By futures 
Nearing future 
Must be here if you are gone

And grandpa needs the lights on bright
So we see every moth hole stitch line
Can I be simple?
I still just think you're the best

So I'm taking a break
From pacing for ways
To give you everything in exchange 
It isn't payment
I should've known
You made it blatant

So I'm just going to sit here beside you
And make you laugh

I picture dinner 
With my maker
And it's much harder 
Without our after-dinner debriefs 
All the relief 
Of not being
All alone

Oh my maker 
Pull me closer
I am all yours
I'm that and more 

Favourite woman
Could I drop it 
Could I listen 
Like you listen 

God's so funny
Take a body 
It's a riot 
Lose your family 

While you're at it
Have a party 
I got lucky 
Crazy lucky

I've been grieving you
And we are both alive 
The bargain of the body;
Infinite love for infinite life




Business (phone draft)

song written in Spring 2020, recording from late Summer 2024. it was raining in the tent.

Rowing Song (phone recording)

Lyrics (ish)


trying like a camera

disparate as textile

waiting like a cloud

till it's all too heavy




raining like hell

down on the mattress

feeling like an actress

crying the lines


lining like silver

coating the cages

story of the ages

good heart serrated


buying like a broker

into the dreaming

knowing that the cut

will steal from the stealing


forcing like a hinge

non-dominant hand

to write the word

help in the sand


exercise the mind

exercise the heart

relish like god

the being apart


part of the stillness

most of it really is

torrential loudness

nothing. blaring.


thrashing like a silence

making like a mole

all the way to music

all the ways to throw


a decent celebration

of creatures and the earth

to make a songbody

huddling the hurt


fungify like kindness

the worst and best

sides of the culture

north east south west


eastern body

western grandma

universal bootstraps

pulling myself up


tie me down

coil's gotta ground

ankle to the branch

ballooning sound


reigning like the weather

down on our parade

baton-bearing emperors

putting shame to shame


you could be a lover

you could sing a song

uniform; the skin

asking what's wrong


I could be a mother…

laying like a voice…

larvae in the music…

nest like a noise…


silent like a baby

after the cord's

cut like a creature

so it can make towards


a decent celebration

for creatures and the earth

to make a songbody…

huddling the hurt


fungify with kindness

the best and the worst

sides of the culture

till the sungod bursts


I could go away

I could come back

I could carry life

By laying it flat


Life could carry me

I could be a bird

deliver me to sky

and back to the earth


I could run away

I could walk back

slow for to listen

slow for to act


just like me

i'm not a trap

and just like me

it all grows back


To the earth…to the sky

Like the earth…like the sky


Songbody live, songbody die

Like a song, or a camera

Songbody try

(I accidentally sang 'like the earth' in this take, and I like accidents because they're very godly. so still figuring out whether or not to keep the so-called mistake) 




'Songbody' phone draft

Buganvília phone demo

This was written in the shower in the summer of 2019. I remember this because it’s the only song that has come to me in the shower which my brain has retained long enough that I could then scrawl it down on paper, post-shower, and return to it. Rest in peace to every other shower song. 

This song is wide-eyed, enchanted, bewildered and a little lost. It is about having been a child, still being one, wishing to be one, wishing not to be. It grieves a magic, and in the same breath, attempts to re-conjure it. 

Because I’m not sure it ever died. Maybe it just went for a walk.

In The Air

Lyrics:
'If I could be so bold as to talk in third house terms
I speak a lonely language
Sweet languor, though it comes, is rare and quick to go
Mine is a floating anchor
You taught me a language
A thread I use to sew myself back onto the ground
And not forgoing any magic
Vesica piscis upon vesica piscis upon vesica piscis
You taught me a language
A voice that makes me want to sleep
So I won't be the only one who speaks it
In this room, in this city
In the world there aren't many
But enough, I hope
I'm getting on and still don't know what to let inside of me
How long will my youth be my excuse
For being so far away
From the wall I plot to knock into a million pieces
The dust will be my wings and I will fly
But not forgoing the mundane
Vesica piscis upon vesica piscis upon vesica piscis
You made it safe to feel unsafe in front of you
Someone said a thing about my body today
And I knew just what to do
I didn't do it but at least I knew
And my language, my language, my language
Is yours
My language, my language, my language
It pours
Through every song of mine
And into every dream
The dream that even with my language
I will come to know familiarity
Vesica piscis upon vesica piscis upon vesica piscis...'


Credits:
Ahana - Lead Vocals, Back Vocals and Acoustic Guitar
Diogo Sarabando - Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Classical Guitar, Bass, Piano and Keys
Micael Lourenço - Xylophone
João Sousa - Trumpet
João Seco - Trombone
Mariana Moita - Violin
Beatriz Capote - Violin

Written by Ahana
Arranged by Ahana and Diogo Sarabando
Recorded at Ahana’s Grandma house, puppy garden studios and casa da música Ilhavo
Produced and Mixed by Diogo Sarabando at puppy garden studios
Mastered by Sam Torres at Polymouth Mastering


Language

Lyrics:
I left my body in the garden
Present for the pouring sun
I left my body in a tree
I'd like to go back
To be with me
I left my body in the window seat
Of a fast train moving slow, slow, slow
I left my body on a piano stool
I left my body out to cool
I left my body in a dream
About a lover not yet seen
Shoulder to shoulder
I left my body in the sea
I left my body at the scene
I left my body in the the sounds
I threw my body all around...
I left my body with a girl
I left my body with a man
I took my body from the world
And then I left it in their hands
I left my body at the ball
I made my body big and small
I didn't know that it could fall
I let my body take it all...
I left my body in my grandparents' house
Six and soft and silly with insight
I left my body on a wall, leaning
I left my body once and for all
I left my body on a river, gliding
I left my body in mid-air, diving
I left my body in a shirt, hiding
I left my body on a hill, dying
I left my body over there, over there...
I left my body in a song
I left my body in a song
I left my body in a song, so many songs
I had my body very wrong
I had a body all along...

Credits:
Ahana - Lead Vocals, Back vocals, Acoustic Guitar and Field Recordings
Diogo Sarabando - Electric Guitar, Classical Guitar, Bass, Piano and Keys
Micael Lourenço - Drums, Percussion and Xylophone 
João Sousa - Trumpet
João Seco - Trombone
João Samuel Silva - Flute

Written by Ahana
Arranged by Ahana and Diogo Sarabando
Recorded at Ahana’s grandparents' house, puppy garden studios and casa da música Ilhavo
Produced and Mixed by Diogo Sarabando at puppy garden studios
Mastered by Sam Torres at Polymouth Mastering
Artwork by Anna Margarita Veitch and Javaid Haujee


ILMBIAS

A lifelong solicitant of old wisdoms, Ahana is enchanted by things unknowable.  If the world leans clutchingly toward conclusion, she seeks a counterweight — digging her heels into a deep love of mystery — and inviting you to rest with her there, knowing well the exhaustion of always pursuing an answer.

Born in the UK, with roots in Portugal and Northern India, Ahana’s work draws from a confluence of cultural, musical, and poetic traditions. Her debut album, 'Soma', offers a first glimpse into this dialogue. 

Recorded across Portugal and London in collaboration with producer Diogo Sarabando (aka himalion), the 12-song project attempts to un-tell a stagnant story — dismantling a long-held dismissal of the body and the material world, wondering: could the soma be the soul?

She doesn't claim to know. But if Ahana is certain of anything, it is the soft might of a tender body — of a form fully felt. And that the suppler the heart, the more porous it is to change. And that change is one of the very great magics.

AHANA

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