La Habanera Dub by Daniel Haaksman

“La Habanera” is the name of a well-known aria from Carmen, an opera by Georges Bizet. The Habanera aria itself is originally based on “El Arreglito” by Sebastián de Yradier, a Basque composer. “La Habanera” enjoys great popularity outside the opera world, it´s probably one of the most famous arias in the world, revisited and reinterpreted hundreds of times since its first public release in 1875. The aria is sung in act 1 by the title character, the gypsy Carmen (mezzo-soprano), in it she expresses her indifference to the protestations of love and advances of her numerous suitors.

Daniel´s “Vem” track, released in April this year, already made use of string orchestration. It´s string sounds and classic music that Daniel currently gets the most excited about.

When Daniel accidentally stumbled across the aria while listening to Berlin´s Klassik Radio, he noticed that the first notes of “La Habanera” are rhythmically played like a dembow rhythm. Soon he searched for the midi files of the aria, realised its metrics was based on 75bpm – perfect dembow tempo – and sculpted the dub in two days studio time.

Shortly after, Daniel met Armenian opera singer Naré, with whom he recorded an additional vocal version of “La Habanera” (which we´ll release in a couple of weeks from now).

Until then, enjoy the dub, we´ll get back to you soon with probably the first ever dembow aria!

Artwork by www.anjejager.com

released October 7, 2021
Written by Daniel Haaksman, James Anderson James. Published by Highscore Publishing, Musiqware Publishing. (P) 2021 Man Recordings UG.