Review: La Sera - s/t

Artist: La Sera
Title: s/t
Format: Full-length
Year: 2011
Label: Hardly Art
Genre: lo-fi indie pop
Rating: 80 / 100

Today was a beautiful day, slightly sunny, just under 20°C, birds tjilping like their life depends on the beauty of their dissonant tunes, spent the whole day at the moorlands of Gelderland, of course slightly burnt, like every first day outside during spring. After arriving home and having some pumpkin, I decided to listen to the self-titled La Sera debut album for about the fourth time this week. Really, these are the days at which this kind of music expresses itself to the fullest.

Now, I can imagine you've never heard of La Sera before, still, you might recognize the name Katy Goodman, or the band that once made her famous: Vivian Girls (oh, how I love that band). Now, if you have ever heard one of the Vivian Girls albums, you won't be very surprised by the sound of Katy Goodman's first solo album. Overall, this album is pretty similar, some differences being that where Vivian Girls tend to lean a bit to the more rockier side, La Sera "chooses" the more poppy side, probably influenced a bit by 60's girl groups, resulting in a bit more dreamy sound, almost even nostalgic at moments. The thing helping the songs for the major part to achieve this kind of sound are the exceptionally beautiful vocal melodies, it is very hard to find any vocal part which is sung by just one Katy Goodman, she often appears as 2 or 3 versions at the same time, making these songs very attractive, even a bit hypnotic at times.

Of course you're currently wondering why I gave this album an 80 instead of 90, like the two paragraphs above might suggest. Well, this album is just a bit more of the same, of course the sound isn't exactly like Vivian Girls or similar bands, but it isn't really something I would go mental about because I've never heard anything like it before. Which by the way isn't such a big problem, the album is still pretty damn fine in its own way, Katy's vocals really boost this album to a level of medium awes0meness. And by the way, Katy Goodman is absolutely the most attractive girl in pop music I have ever witnessed. Some sources even say her smile has the ability to create world peace and make Chuck Norris have a boner at the same time. Besides those amazing abilities, her smile is also able to make the birds in my backyard go mad, making them sing the most beautiful pieces of music my dog will ever hear (I never listen to Sigur Ros downstairs). Don't believe me: you better do.

If you enjoyed Vivian Girls or one of their side projects (The Babies, Frankie Rose & The Outs) definitely check this one out, it's just very warm, soft, lovely pop music with those tiny bits of lo-fi rawness, or in other words: the kind of music indie lovers will adore in early spring.

Spread the love,

Selwin