For several years I've been fascinated by the music of this tall, dark, mysterious, sexy and absolutely wonderful woman! Her much overseen debut album, Maya Albana, (1999) is from my view among the five best Danish albums ever released, and one of the most - if not the most - played albums in my record collection.

This rainy Saturday night, Maya Albana held a Release Party to celebrate the release of her second album, God Bless Education, which is officially released on Monday 22. March 2004. Invited were friends and colleagues within the music business, and they soon filled the small venue at Foley's in Lille Kannikestræde in Copenhagen.
A lot of celebrities were crowded in the small rooms. All band members of Kashmir were present, as Maya's boyfriend, Henrik Lindstrand and Kashmir's drummer, Asger Techau, play in Maya's 2004 Spring Tour band. So do Anders Birch (Love Julie) and singer Camille Jones.
One of the producers of Maya's first album, Thomas Blackman, was also there. So was Maria Køhnke (Kira & Co/Swan Lee), Kaya, Louise Hart, Maria Hecht (Sound Of Seduction), Jonas Berg (Swan Lee), Johan Lei Gellett (former Kira & Co/NU/Louise Hart, Lars HUG), Felix (Rundfunk), Lina Rafn (Infernal), Sara Bro, Trine Dyhrholm, Maria Buras ... just to mention a few.
At app. 11 P.M. Maya and her backing band entered the stage, which was actually merely a corner of the bar. They gave a strong set of seven songs, - five of them off the album, two were previously unreleased songs, maybe out-takes from the GBE Recording Sessions? I was pleased to hear that Maya gave much more rough, almost neo-punk versions of the songs, compared to the recorded versions. And that's the concept of live rock music! What a powerfull performance it was!
I really hope for Maya that this new album will have a far better fate than her first solo project! It depends on the efforts made by her record company to promote this brilliant product. I think that they already made a good job, but the promotion has to continue.
I hope to see another single release from the album, followed by a video at the same high level as the God Bless Education video. It was made by Maya herself, as she is at the moment studying at Den Danske Filmskole (director of documentary films).
Maya also has an excellent website (- though rather slow to downloade), which can be visited here.

Photographs by Eric Klitgaard © 2004