CMU Approved

Approved: Gabi

By | Published on Thursday 27 September 2018

Gabi

Gabrielle Herbst’s biog is lengthy and impressive. She’s studied Balinese dance, traditional Indonesian percussion, piano, clarinet and composition. She’s also composed orchestral works and operas. Gabi is, for want of a better word, her pop project. Away from the long-form of classical music, she aims to write short, vocal-focussed pieces.

She released her first album as Gabi, titled ‘Sympathy’, in 2015. It’s a very good album, you should listen to it. But the new music she has released recently, taken from her upcoming second album ‘Empty Me’, takes the project to a completely new level.

Struck with inspiration, Herbst wrote music for the new album at all times of the day and night. Literally, she would often wake up in darkness with an idea in her head, which she’d bash out on the piano half asleep – such as the song ‘Sleep’. “I was not interested in virtuosity, really”, she says. “I was drawn to music that had that element of necessity to it. I wanted to find that in myself and strip everything else away”.

It’s that feeling of music that needs to come out that really elevates her new songs. New single ‘Wild Sunflowers’ is a fine example. Ahead of the new album release on 5 Oct, listen to that here.

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