Anna Ran is an independent artist from Gothenburg and ‘Vultures with Guilt’ is the first new music from her since 2025’s album Out of Silence.
The song has a slow-motion quality; that slightly drowsy feeling feel of being in the liminal space between asleep and awake (known as hypnopompia). This perfectly captures what Ran was hoping for with her new songs, “music that focuses on the outer world that meets the inner world and back out again, in this burning time that creates an inner tug-of-war between hope and hopelessness.” ‘Vultures…’ emerges from a dreamlike mist of keyboard washes, languid drums, muted bass line, and gentle guitar all of which build to a midpoint that phases and crescendos into an unsettling collision of sounds. Anna Ran’s voice has an otherworldly purity that floats through the song (occasionally doubled with a whisper). It is non-judgemental in tone but with a affecting quality that could be construed as resigned melancholy.
The lyrics, while not explicit in meaning, hint at many things wrong with society at the moment: a small percentage of people more concerned with money and power and less unconcerned with the collateral damage that their greed causes. The rest of us have opted for a quiet life of consumerism, Ran sings, “Save us all from what we’ve become. Idleness the exchange for all they’ve done.” We are all in the liminal space between understanding the world is on fire but not having the energy to put it out. Ran leaves the most chilling line to the end of the song, “Vultures with guilt. On the bones of children. Look what we’ve let them build”.
The song isn’t officially out until 22 May but Anna has kindly given Joyzine readers the change to hear the disquieting beauty of ‘Vultures with Guilt’ before anyone else.
The song was produced by Anna Ran and mixed by Filip Leyman who also works with Sumie, Karl Vento, and Anna Von Hausswolff. He also released a glorious ambient album in 2025 Soft Light (my review here). Anna says, ”I always love to work with Filip Leyman*; he is the one I trust the most in music and we have worked together for about 18 years now. When he came to the studio to record the drums for ‘Vultures with Guilt’, he listened to the song and then did a take that immediately had just the right feel. I am so happy with how it came together. It was also really exciting and fun to work with Erki Pärnoja for the first time. I got the idea to ask him, and we clicked right away and he immediately understood what I meant and wanted. He recorded the electric base in Estonia, and we talked on video call while he was sitting in his studio.”
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Lyrics
The blood on your hands
Is the blood in our mouth
You made us love the taste
We circle around
Vultures with guilt
We will never find
Peace of mind
Save us all from what we’ve become
Idleness the exchange for all they’ve done
They do it for profit
They do it for fun
They don’t even care if they kill everyone
And we always help them
Easy to persuade
With blood on our tongues
We look away
Vultures with guilt
Vultures with guilt
On the bones of children
Look what we’ve let them build.
Photograph of Anna Ran by photoartist Parinazz Wennerholm
Review by Paul F Cook
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