A unique blend of old country western and modern lo-fi.

10 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Modern Folk, COUNTRY: Country Folk



Details:
Sera Cahoone is a songwriter based in Seattle, by way of Colorado. Armed with her favorite Martin guitar, Seraâs music reflects her love of both old country-western and modern lo-fi.

Her unique sound bridges the gap between the two genres, like a musical love child of Buck Owens and Cat Power. The Strangerâs music editor, Jennifer Maerz, states âCahoone has a truly gorgeous voice, a dusty country style delivery...(her) music gives me the chills...slow, warm, simply beautiful.â

Sera has spent the past year working on her first full-length album. It was recently completed with help from musician friends:
Jay Kardong, Jeff Fielder, Eric Himes, and Sarah Standard and Mat Brooke from Carissaâs Weird. The ten songs on her album feature a wide array of sounds including pedal steel, banjo, dobro, violin, and harmonica. Her album tells the quiet story of simple truthsâheartbreak, longing, and self-discovery.

Sera began writing songs on the guitar in high school, but actually got her musical start at the age of eleven, when her mother finally gave in to her daughterâs prodding and bought Sera her first drum set. To the tune of her familyâs exasperation, she taught herself the drums by playing along to the radio in her bedroom. By thirteen, Seraâs mother was driving her to Rocky Mountain-town bars to play open blues jams with musicians thirty years her senior.

In recent years, Sera was the drummer for indie favorites Carissaâs Weird, touring with Iron and Wine and The Long Winters. She has also played with Panda and Angel, Lisa Orth, and L.A. musician Patrick Park, completing two U.S. tours with Patrick in support of Liz Phair, Rachel Yamagata, and The Thrills. Sera also played drums on the upcoming release from Sub Popâs Band Of Horses.

Seraâs experience as a drummer has heavily-influenced her song-writing. She has a sharp sense of rhythm and tempo, and has been described as a particularly percussive guitar-player, producing songs that are rich and memorable. Named by The Seattle Times as one of the Northwestâs top ten new artists of 2005, Tom Scanlon writes âUpon hearing her sing, itâs clear she belongs in front of a microphone, no matter how good a drummer she is.â


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
âImagine 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.â
-Bob Fuchs

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


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


THE SEATTLE TIMES
âConsensus is that (Seraâs) 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.â
-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