Friday, November 06, 2009

From Ella to Jill

I've been sitting on this one way to long. Listening to Amy Serrata's debut self-titled album is really quite refreshing. I keep coming back to it over the last few months, and every time, it's just as fresh. On it, Serrata pulls in influences from other female songstresses as diverse as Jill Scott and Ella Fitzgerald. Especially in the first half of the album, the Ella comparison really jumps out at me. She has the emotive, jazzy bubbleyness which made Ella so irresistible. Her voice carries a crisp, clear and bright delight to it that is just contagious.

What makes it even more impressive is that this is her debut album, and she's come out swinging for the fence. As mentioned above, the first few tracks evoke Ella's jazz, albeit with an updated electronic beat running the show. This modern feeling accelerates as you get deeper into the album, creating a electronic, poppy jazz feeling that slowly shifts into more of an R&B vibe (the track Lets is where it becomes obvious) with some slight hip hop undercurrents. By the time she's done, Serrate proves she's got spunk and soul. There's also a little Latin flair thrown in near the end of the album on Yes To Life.

Try out two of the album's tracks below. The first, Rooted, has got a strong R&B beat to it, almost something that you could bounce to. The other one here, Love Another, takes that same vibe even farther with some hip hop sampling action upping the action. Both reside more on the modern end of the release, coming at the tail end of the thirteen tracks on the album.






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