New York, NY (Top40 Charts) 25-year-old, IVI was born in Austria but grew up in London, soaking in all the diverse artistic influences in the city and distilling them into her own heady musical brew. The result is a seductive pop alchemy and the scratchy intensity of her unique vocal timbre, evoking the style of twentieth-century femme fatale icon Marlene Dietrich. This is illuminated perfectly in IVI's debut single, Andromeda - out now.
IVI is a versatile artist who expertly writes with a contemporary mainstream attitude and blends it beautifully with her distinctive Dietrich like vocals. The writer and producer of Andromeda, Ferdinando Arnò, was the first to notice the similarity and point it out to IVI who found the comparison to the great icon surprising and hugely flattering. It is quite an accolade to be compared vocally to the legendary star of stage and screen. She says: " I like voices that leave their mark, the ones you recognize after a few seconds because they have an unmistakable tone and intensity. Marlene's voice is extraordinary."
For IVI, music is all about love, evoking emotions and strong attitudes. She says, "To me music is the universal dictionary of emotions. Songs are magic boxes made of sounds, colours and perfumes." Her influences are many and varied including - surprisingly - country, and in particular
Karen Dalton and Johnny Cash, two passions she inherited from her parents (her father was a drummer in a marching ban d.) No less important for IVI is the track 'Dreams' by music legends Fleetwood Mac, a song which she herself reinterpreted as the B-side of Andromeda: She explains: "
Stevie Nicks has always been one of my landmarks. I listen to old style music even if interpreted by today's artists. I love
Leon Bridges and Gregory Porter, but also Led Zeppelin. For me, good music is really played by men and women in a state of grace."
With Andromeda, IVI has been working with the best of the best: the track was written and produced by Ferdinando Arnò and mixed by Grammy Award winning sound engineer Tom Elmhirst who has worked with Amy Winehouse, Adele,
David Bowie and Beck. Not only that, but IVI's Dietrich-like vocals have been noticed by influential ears and recently her voice was used by Furtuna Skin for its international ad campaign. IVI does not want to stop there: she seeks to bring the power of her music to the wider world and leave her mark upon it- and upon people's memories. As she says herself:
"
Music has the power. Everyone ' s life is characterized by a soundtrack made of songs that have stratified in memory and heart. And each of these songs recalls a different emotion. Each piece that excites us, that makes us vibrate, is like a tattoo, a soul tattoo"
