"Fading Faces" by Gloria de Oliveira
Debut single from the forthcoming album The Lying Swans
“Fading Faces” is the debut single from Gloria de Oliveira’s forthcoming album The Lying Swans. Romantic and haunting, de Oliveira’s voice confidently floats through a gentle storm of drums and plucked fairy tale tension on “Fading Faces”.
“This song required a degree of vulnerability that permeates The Lying Swans,” she noted. “Musically it still follows the tradition of my previous albums, while simultaneously drawing on new modes of expression.”
The music video for “Fading Faces” was directed by de Oliveira herself and depicts a Pre-Raphaelite water nymph stranded on a mystical beach.
The Lying Swans is Gloria de Oliveira’s third album and set for release on 30 October 2026 (La Double Vie & Cargo Records). The Lying Swans was produced by Randall Dunn and recorded in Iceland, New York City, and Berlin. Her second album, Oceans of Time was created in collaboration with David Lynch’s longtime sound designer Dean Hurley and released in late 2022 (Sacred Bones Records). Oceans of Time includes a lovely rendition of Jeff Buckley’s “All Flowers in Time”.
For The Lying Swans de Oliveira worked with Gyða Valtýsdóttir (cello), Marilu Donavan (harp), Úlfur Hansson (synth and segulharpa), Matt Chamberlain (drums), Lennard Zander (guitar), among others.
“One of the aspects closest to my heart is the group of artists I got to collaborate with. The emotional undercurrent was borne out of spending years in a very isolating situation, desperate to get out. So, being able to bring the songs to life with Randall, Ulfur and others, and sharing these sentiments was a beautiful experience.”
What can listeners expect from Gloria de Oliveira’s new album The Lying Swans?
“I had a bit of an electronics burnout due to staying inside and working through and with screens so much during the pandemic,” explained Gloria. “I really wanted to create this album avoiding these as much as possible. I think I drove Randall a bit up the wall with this, but we found a way and the result is something that to me feels so tangible and earthy, which does the raw emotions of the songs justice. The way I like to put it is that my previous two albums take place in the Aether, among the clouds, while this one is set in a forest by the sea.”
The Lying Swans will be released 30 October by La Double Vie, an indie artist collective. La Double Vie (“the double life”) refers to the collective’s multi-disciplinary output, but also the need for independent artists to find ways to pursue artistic endeavours while also meeting the demands of daily life. The collective initially functioned as a resource sharing and support network, but has grown into a record label that currently includes Gloria de Oliveira, Seda Kaçak, Erik Hamann (elkks), lovespells, Giovanni Raabe (Brnjsmin), Kate de Rosset, Lennard Zander, ANIQO and Viola Wells. You can follow La Double Vie on Substack, where contributors discuss issues related to living a ‘double life’.
Gloria de Oliveira is a German-Brazilian musician and multi-disciplinary visual artist based in Berlin. After training as a classical singer and then falling into an acting career, she has increasingly been dedicating herself to music. Her sonic spectrum defies genre and moves seamlessly between dream pop, ethereal wave, ambient, shoegaze, folk, classical, bossa nova & tropicália influences. Links to her work here.