VANA MAKES A FEARLESS LEAP TO SUMERIAN RECORDS AND UNVEILS HER MOST CHAOTIC SINGLE YET, “PRAY”
Auckland’s rising industrial-alt force Vana has officially joined the Sumerian Records roster, and she is marking the moment with a ferocious new single and music video titled “Pray.” The announcement lands right in the middle of her current US tour with Set It Off and Fame On Fire, where she has been performing to packed rooms and winning over new audiences night after night.
Even before signing, Vana had already carved out a devoted global following, pulling in more than 85 million independent streams through her self-taught musicianship and genre-shifting creativity. “Pray” feels like the next logical step for an artist who has never waited for permission to build her own universe.
The song hits like a psychological free fall. Industrial metal clash, trap-leaning beats, and R&B-inspired melodies all collide as Vana’s vocals weave between seduction, panic, and fury. The production feels purposely chaotic, as if the entire track is shaking under the weight of the story it tells.
“Pray” is centered around the disorienting collapse of reality through the eyes of someone experiencing mania and psychosis. The lyrics twist religious imagery into something unstable and unsettling. Vana’s complex relationship with religion runs through the track. Raised in a deeply religious home, she approaches the subject with both reverence and rebellion, giving the song its emotional core. Layer that with her love of gothic literature, anime, Lovecraftian horror, and misunderstood characters, and a much larger creative world starts to reveal itself — one she plans to explore further on her upcoming debut album next year.
The music video deepens that unraveling. Instead of leaning on straightforward storytelling, it jumps between symbolic flashes, surreal rituals, and moments that look like memories glitching in real time. It feels like stepping into someone’s distorted consciousness, and Vana guides the viewer through it with an unflinching, magnetic performance.
Speaking on the creation of the song, Vana explains that “Pray” is meant to mirror the overwhelming noise of a manic episode. “It’s as chaotic as I imagine someone's psyche would be in that state,” she says. “Almost as if both the angel and the devil on your shoulders were screaming in your ears at the same time.”
Her excitement about signing with Sumerian Records is just as intense. “Signing with Sumerian feels like I’ve found a label that understands my brain,” she shares. “They believed in ‘Pray’ the second they heard it, and they believe in the world I want to build. This song is the beginning of a whole cinematic universe I’ve been dying to create.”
With “Pray,” Vana steps into a new era with unmistakable intent. It is bold, unnerving, emotionally volatile, and fully rooted in her identity as both a storyteller and a world-builder.