Zanne Hanna On the Making Of “In My Dreams (Ft. Austin Atlas)”
What was the creative process like for this particular "In My Dreams (Ft. Austin Atlas)?"
I wrote “In My Dreams” at the beginning of this year as a way to process my breakup from a five-year relationship. I kept a running list of observations in my notes app on my phone. These were mostly random thoughts that I had that felt like they truly came from my own mind and not an outside source. I was visiting the beach often and observing the tides and literally looking at my own feet and realizing they were attached to my body. In a conversation with my best friend, we discussed what it felt like to experience a breakup. She said how it was weird to feel like you were grieving someone who was still living. She said “to lose someone but not in death” and now she has a writing credit for the song!
Can you talk about the recording and production process for "In My Dreams (Ft. Austin Atlas)?"
This song is my first collaboration with another producer. I reconnected with my friend Andrew (Austin Atlas) at this popular hometown bar over the summer, and we saw it as a great opportunity to finally work on a song together! I sent him an acoustic demo of the song first which I had envisioned as having a more EDM feel to it (his specialty). Then I recorded my own vocals in my home studio and edited, comped, and tuned them. I sent over an Ableton session with some guide tracks of basic demo sounds to give him a sense of how I wanted the song to feel. From there he sent back demos of the instrumentation he produced, and then we moved on to mixing and mastering from there! Andrew is an incredible talent and truly brought this song to life from a vision that only existed in my brain.
Were there any challenges or breakthrough moments during the songwriting process for this single?
Typically I write a song from start to finish in a few sittings, editing along the way and revisiting it before I record it. This was my first attempt at collecting lyric ideas over a period of time and practicing some real patience. Once I had the hook line, “in my dreams I’m always right,” I realized I wanted this song to be a collection of psychedelic observations into one huge revelation: I lost someone who thought very little of me, and that was an objective fact.
Are there any specific themes or topics that often find their way into your songs?
I tend to write a lot about my experiences with loss and grief, and about how I perceive myself in my own body and in social situations. In this song, there are themes of delusion and my experiences with OCD. I tend to infuse a lot of my writing with ocean imagery since I grew up in Florida and spent my college years missing my hometown. I tend to miss the places where I’m not and have a hard time being present in my own life.
How has studying at Berklee College of Music made an impact on your music career?
At Berklee, I chose a very technical path, studying audio engineering, sound design, audio electronics and acoustics, and even music cognition. I fully expected to be working in a recording studio or a technical space for the rest of my career. More recently I’ve reconnected with my creativity and recognized that while my technical expertise is a HUGE help as an artist, it was really feeding my ego and a strange desire for academic superiority that I developed from being in a magnet program in high school.
