***The debut album from Sarah La Puerta: Strange Paradise. Begun on a dead-end street in Austin, TX and finished in a barn in upstate New York, this collection of original songs emerges from the inbetween places of the mind and heart, grounded by autobiographical truth that resonates with the force of myth. Built around the gentle pulse of a Baldwin Fun Machine, a midcentury organ and synthesizer, each track revels in uncanny sounds that call on a world gone by. Swirling in the background are traces of Mexican boleros, Bulgarian choral music, and the melodic sensibilities of Old Bollywood. But even as La Puerta’s musical textures drift off into warm nostalgia, her words cut right to the present. On the opener, “A Gun,” she sings: “That’s why I’m buying a gun: I’d like to have some fun, now while the chips are down.” A peculiar levity throughout offers a distinct counterpoint to the ever-present themes of memory, desire and grief. Sarah La Puerta weaves between them in swaying arrangements that foreground her careful sense of melody and ascendant voice.
LP $25.35
09/02/2022