Album Notes

Daughter of a Rocky Mountain dynamite salesman, songwriter Sera Cahoone got her musical start on the drums at twelve years old. At twenty-one she left Colorado, in favor of Seattle, Washington’s gloomy skies and drummed for--among others--now-defunct indie favorites Carissa’s Wierd (sic.,) L.A. musician Patrick Park, and Subpop’s Band of Horses acclaimed release “Everything all the Time.” Despite being an accomplished guitar player and songwriter, Sera largely preferred to stay behind the drum kit until one particular tour across the United States with Park in 2006. On that tour, she found herself particular inspired by the landscape outside of the van window, and she wrote an album in her thoughts as they drove along blue highways and back roads of the expansive west and the plains.

When she returned home to Seattle, she fine-tuned those songs on her Martin guitar, and later recorded the album with help from fellow musician friends on a wide array of instruments from pedal steel to banjo.

Her self-titled, self-released debut album reflects her love of both old-school country music and modern low fi, and has been dubbed “the love child of Cat Power and Buck Owens.” After its release in February of 2006, Sera’s album was met with wide-spread critical acclaim, including being named one of the top ten albums of 2006 by NPR’s Stephen Thompson, and “one of my favorite albums of the year local or not” by KEXP DJ John Richards.

Sera has currently set her drum sticks aside, is touring in support of her album, and working on a follow-up album to be released on Subpop sometime in the near-future.



NPR---Top 10 CDs of 2006-
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6660262

NO DEPRESSION-
"Cahoone's album is spare, arranged with meticuluos but not fussy precision. While acoustic guitar serves as the primary accompaniment, judicious integration of banj, dobro and pedal and lap steel enrich hushed cuts."
-Kurt B. Reighley

NPR- Song of the Day
"Sera Cahoone has played drums for Band of Horses and Carissa's Wierd (sic), two groups whose music can be majestically beautiful, wrenchingly powerful or both. None of their output, however, provides any reason to expect Cahoone's solo work to drift into territory as strangely soothing as her sublimely gorgeous, breezily hypnotic, Couch Song."
-Stephen Thompson

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE-
"Cat Power's exquisitely hazy voice goes southern gothic on Sera Cahoone's stunning self-titled debut, complete with lap-steel, banjo and brushed drums. It's the kind of album that steals the air from your lungs with every listen."
-Aidin Vaziri


THE ELECTRIC FETUS- Minneapolis
“Imagine Mazzy Star careening through American folk and country and you get the idea. It takes me to places both beautiful and sad. It makes me want to pack up the car and drive the great wide open spaces West of the Missouri River... The band is tight and the record has the feel of a country classic...One of my top ten records of 2005.”
-Bob Fuchs

TIME OUT NEW YORK - NY NY
“There are just too many young indie-weaned performers playing gentle countryish songs. Sera Cahoone appears to be one of ‘em yet there is a depth and command to her voice that warrants attention. A close listen pays off in spades.”
-Jay Ruttenberg


KEXP 90.3fm SEATTLE
"Fantastic record. One of my favorite records of the year–local or not."
-John In The Morning


THE SEATTLE TIMES
“Consensus is that (Sera’s) much better in front of the kit. Like Jesse Sykes, she explores the textured nuances of country... her self-titled debut record came out in late January, and it may finally bridge Capitol Hill Hipsters and hard-core devotees of the Tractor Tavern.”
-Tizzy Asher - The Seattle PI included Sera Cahoone in top ten local bands to watch in 2006.

BILLINGS GAZETTE
"Everything about Sera Cahoone begs you to come closer.
Her clear, aching vocals can drop to a whisper, sometimes even fading into nothing but the vague sound of words, a dreamy memory of a long-ago conversation.
The 29-year-old Seattle singer's debut solo album has none of the bombast you might expect from the former drummer of Carissa's Weird. On this rootsy, lo-fi collection, Cahoone and her band have stripped country music to its purest form, the pained, far-off moan of the pedal steel, the lonesome dobro and violin, with a little banjo and the slight heartbeat of bass and drums."
- Chris Jorgensen