Review
Genre and Mood
Parra for Cuva and Anna Naklab close their first EP with Swept Away, deep house with a pop singer at its centre; their label, Délicieuse, filed it under what it called Deep Pop. The feelings come from the label’s own words: ethereal, for the floating synths, and euphoric, for a melody it found punchy and exhilarating.
Song Summary
Swept Away is the song that started it all. Délicieuse wrote that it fell for the track four months before the release, a song Nicolas Demuth had made with his friend Mr. Gramo, and it signed him on the strength of it. On the Fading Nights EP of 8 May 2013 it comes last, in what the label called the mastered version of their flagship track, Naklab’s vocals over synths that come and go and ethereal arpeggios. It runs five minutes and forty-six seconds.
Musical Breakdown
No source we found times this recording or describes its sections, so this guide follows the elements the label named.
The Synths
The synths come and go, the label wrote, with ethereal arpeggios: the colour that gives the track its floating quality.
The Melody
Against them runs a melody the label called punchy and exhilarating, the part that pulls the track toward pop.
The Vocal
Naklab’s voice, in the label’s words, enhances the track and skilfully accompanies that melody, as it does across the whole EP.
Concepts in Focus
An arpeggio plays a chord one note at a time, and synthesizers can cycle through one endlessly. That is the sound Délicieuse heard here: arpeggios that come and go, giving a slow deep house groove a sense of motion without adding weight.
The <a href=“https://korczis.github.io/sonic-playground/concept/featured-artist/” class=“concept-link font-medium text-primary-700 underline decoration-dotted underline-offset-4 hover:decoration-solid dark:text-primary-400” data-concept=“featured-artist” title=“A guest performer credited on another artist’s track, usually as “feat.”: a rapper’s verse, a singer’s hook or a second voice. Features bring together different styles and audiences and are central to hip-hop, R&B and dance music.“>featured artist credit is shared. The video names Naklab and Mr. Gramo beside Parra for Cuva, and the label describes the track as made with Mr. Gramo, Demuth’s fellow student of sound design in Berlin.
Swept Away had a second life as a remix. Robin Schulz’s remix was released in 2014, the year his version of Lilly Wood and The Prick, Robin Schulz – Prayer in C (Robin Schulz Radio Edit) became a hit, and the remix appeared on compilations and on the Fading Nights Remixes.
Artistic Context
Parra for Cuva is Nicolas Demuth, born in Göttingen in 1991; he learned piano at eleven, drawn to Debussy, and moved to Berlin to study audio design. Délicieuse introduced him as a producer from Cologne who had studied at the Hochschule der populären Künste alongside Egokind, Marlon Hoffstadt and 4nton. Anna Naklab, born Annika Klose in Göttingen in 1993, sings on all three tracks of the EP, which opens with Parra for Cuva, Anna Naklab – Fading Nights.
Impact and Reception
The EP was the label’s sixth release and the beginning of its work with Parra for Cuva; Délicieuse promised a second EP with a remix of each track. Later in 2013 Demuth and Naklab released Wicked Games, a remake of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game, and reached a far wider audience. Swept Away is the track that came first. Let the arpeggios carry you.
