Double Concert: Daniela Pes & Ana Lua Caiano (Italia/Portugal)

Daniela Pes is one of the most interesting new talents on the Italian pop scene. In 2023, her album “Spira” was awarded the prize for best debut work at Targa Tenco, the most prestigious Italian music award. It is not like other debuts. On the album, Daniela Pes sings in a language that does not (yet) exist. Shrouded in elegant, dark electronic beats and cosmic ambient breaths, we hear ancient Gallurese words, fragments of Italian terms and entirely invented words. They form the building blocks of something new, where verses are free from metrics, and words are pure sound.

Born in 1992 in Gallura, Daniela Pes is a singer, an instrumentalist, and an electronic explorer. She got a jazz vocals degree from the Conservatorio di Sassari and has received several awards and accolades on her way to where she is today - an uncompromising futurist, dedicated to deconstructing the song form and breaking down language to create an esoteric sonic world. A hugely ambitious project, of course – but one helped by her knack for beautiful melodies, catchy hooks and moments of sheer musical wonder.

During Oslo World, Daniela Pes will play at BLÅ as a double concert with Ana Lua.

This year, Ana Lua Caiano truly announced herself to the world of music with her debut on Glitterbeat Records, Vou Ficar Neste Quadrado – a whirlwind of pulsing, glitchy, atmospheric tunes, inspired by the artists deep love for everything from art pop to Portuguese folk music.

It had been coming for a while – her EPs Se Dan​ç​ar É Só Depois (2023) and Cheguei Tarde A Ontem (2022) made a name for her around Europe and the world. Before that, Caiano had studied for four years at a jazz music school both enjoying the freedoms the music had to offer, becoming more curious about what laid beyond its boundaries. Artists like Björk and Portishead, workshops where she learnt about musique concrète and group singing - everything fed into the music she had begun composing at the age of 15.

By 2022 she’d recorded a single, an online live session and had submitted material to Womex, the influential global music exposition which was taking place in her hometown of Lisbon that year. A showcase brought her to an international audience, and then things truly began to explode. The tastemakers at Glitterbeat Records took note – the label is the ideal place for her relentless experimentalism and attention to tradition. During this year's Oslo World, she will perform as part of a double concert at BLÅ, together with Daniela Pes.