Adja - GOLDEN RETRIEVE HER [CD]

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: SDBANUCD44
Barcode: 5414166682171
Release Date: 11 Apr 2025
Genre: Neo-Soul/R&B/Jazz/Gospel

Adja Fassa’s debut album blends alternative R&B, Neo-Soul, and Jazz to explore capitalism’s impact on our intimate, modern lives. Through vivid storytelling, she addresses serious topics in a symbolic yet straightforward manner, grounded in sharp logical reasoning and, ironically, tinged with a touch of mysticism.

For fans of Hiatus Kaiyote, Lianne La Havas and D’Angelo. 

Co-produced by Adam Scrimshire (featured in the Guardian as one of the three most significant soul music producers alongside Swindle and Inflo in the UK)

LP includes 4 self-designed tarot cards.

3 million streams of her first EP.

This contemporary body of work showcases 11 stories, each telling their story of the impact our capitalistic society has on our most intimate moments: from dystopian neo-soul tales of Deliveroo-drivers being stalked by telemarketers (both of them selling/delivering literal 'hope and dreams'), to re-imagined jazz standards and classical songs about conditional friendships, based on time and money. 

We even get her take on the 'stick-it-to-the-man-sing-along-rock-song', which she called 'Sucking on my Emphatitties'. And then we have the title song 'Golden Retrieve Her' which is as much an accumulation of feelings as of musical curiosities.

‘’ 'Golden Retrieve Her' is a wordplay on wanting to retrieve my kindness in a violent social system. Simultaneously, it is criticizing the fact that we, the masses, are often asked to either be naive or pretend we are. All of this accumulated in a visual image of what our social system considers 'the perfect, obedient nuclear family': a kind couple with 2.4 children, a house in the suburbs and... a Golden Retriever." ~ Adja

Serious and concrete topics, wrapped up in a symbolic package, as Adja values both straightforwardness, critical thinking and, paradoxically, a bit of mysticism. For her visual artwork, she created four, self-made tarot cards, that represent the four themes on the album:
'The Wheel Of Fortune', embodies the desire to get the upper hand in a system that doesn't align with your values. 'The Mirror', represents projection and likeness within lost connections (whether with strangers or with friends), 'The Dark Wheel' embodies the turning point of the wheel of fortune, where one is completely surrendered to their own moral demise and 'The Cave' stands for the - sometimes painful, sometimes blissful - return to one's own mind and heart.

Musically, this album contains as much variety as song titles, as Adja continues to explore her own depths as an artist and musician, together with her partner-in-crime, guitarist, composer and jazz-arranger Alexis Nootens. 

1. Adja - Happiness and Butterflies A2. Adja - Package Delivered by Tomorrow A3. Adja - A Moment A4. Adja - Unfriend A5. Adja - Better Bitter B1. Adja - The Sound of a Mother (interlude) B2. Adja - Sucking on my Emphatitties B3. Adja - Golden Retrieve Her B4. Adja - Be Patient (outro) B5. Adja - Nook B6. Adja - Rest our Hearts