Capture In The Darkness: Henika – “You Bring Me Down”

Henika

“You Bring Me Down”

Henika

This singer brings chills up and down my spine.  Her voice, her music, her videos; they are all chillingly beautiful.  I have listed her bio as she wrote because she does so much better than I do.  All I know, New Zealand is doing something right in raising artists.  Henika is so different, so amazingly talented, a new Kate Bush, but even darker, if that is possible.  What I love most is the sweeping depth of her music, pushing you down one minute, the next back to the surface, like floating on a huge ocean of music.  Her lyrics on “You Bring Me Down” are a plea to be unchained but not blaming the captor.  Beautiful use of all senses.  Henrika knows how music, words, and pictures combine to create images that stay with you forever. Henika will stay with you a long time.  More please.

Henika is the childhood nickname of Henrieta Tornyai, a Slovakian born, New Zealand based multimedia artist. Henika plays guitar, bass guitar, the double bass and sings. She writes and produces her own music and directs and edits her own videos. She began playing guitar at age 11, inspired by Jimi Hendrix and 70s prog rock. She discovered jazz in her teens and went on to study jazz performance at the New Zealand School of Music in Auckland. After graduating, she traveled to United States where she performed in a variety of bands and continued her learning under Prof. Richard Davis a jazz bass legend. Henika is now based in Auckland, New Zealand where she runs her own film and photography production company Hento Productions.

I see your eyes in the mirror
Looking back through time
The memory couldn’t be clearer
In my clouded mind

I remember what you said
Planted demons in my head

I was helpless in you prison
Haggard, haunted, hollow
I have grown, I have risen
Above your long shadow

But whenever you’re around
You can still bring me down

You bring me down
You bring me down
You say you hold me dear
You keep me bound
You bring me down

I am a part of you
Your blood runs through my veins
I have your temper too
But you are not the one to blame

Generation to generation
You only give what you’ve been given