Bits and Pieces

Artist: LSA

Title: Bits And Pieces

Genre: Electronica- Trip Hop

Label: lllElements Records

Website: http://www.lsamusic.net

Aliza Grant AKA LSA (Life's Sole Apprentice) is a multi-talented musician/programmer/engineer that creates her music with keyboards, guitar, sampling, and various vocalizations. On Bits And Pieces Aliza decided that she wanted to give everyone a collection of her music that spoke to her very best efforts, showcasing her diversity.

What you will hear on this CD is an amalgamation of sounds emanating from guitars, keyboards, voices, natural sounds, and some vocals. What it all boils down to in the end is a wide presentation of electronica, trip-hop, and downbeat.

If you like music such as this you will find Bits And Pieces to be a real chill out experience with plenty of variety that allows you to get into a groove, and a most consistent and pleasant one. There is something universally about music like this, I find it very uplifting and relaxing at the same time. By sampling sounds of life, nature, and our surroundings in general, then mixing it electronically with layers of keyboards and various sounds that shifit from one demension to another, it makes for a ambient surrealistic expereince that one has to engage in to find out what it means to them personally.

One of the best tracks is "Underwater Blues." I love the guitar with the reverb and the cool keyboards that sound like they are melting all around the other instruments and sounds. Its futuristic yet grounded in basic guitar chords for a foundation. I like the way LSA takes one idea, and then builds and joins several sounds around it. It's a clever adaptation of the tools at hand and most definetly one of the best tracks on the CD. Similarly the next track "Cricket" is mostly sythesizer, in varying degrees the keyboards are used to build a composition, its something you could imagine hearing playing in the background of a science ficiton movie. This music is not devoid of emotion and feeling as one may think, its very colorful and full of life. "Jesus Loves Me" features vocals and a prolific message which is a step away from the what most of this album is about. Only the artist knows how personal the instrumental runs in every track is and you can try to read between the lines as you go along but its best to just feel what you it makes feel, then it becomes your own interpertation what each title means.

All I can say is give this CD a spin, let yourself become enveloped in all the sounds and draw your own conclusions.

Rating-8/10

Underwater Blues

I don't know why I broke my own rule with this album but I did. Normally I don't even listen to CDR's with laser printed covers but blindly I put in LSA's new EP entitled Underwater Blues which had all the criteria to hit the trash. I'm glad that this one didn't slip by because this girl has something special going on. LSA is Aliza Grant from San Francisco and has apparently been creating and producing music for 12 years. She got her start in a hip hop group called Children of the Fog (quite appropriate for a Bay Area band). She has also graduated from the College for Recording Arts with a degree in sound engineering. Underwater Blues is an introduction into what LSA has been working on lately. The 5 song EP starts out with a full-on drum and bass track called "Herdsman" that incorporates an Asian element into it. It works really nice and comes off very original. The next track is the title track and it sounds like a soundtrack for a deep sea diving movie, gentle and very calm. Other than that, Underwater Blues is actually a very impressive venture into electronica beats of all sorts. Aliza has done a fine job and I look forward to a complete album from her.

(Illellements 2003)

Review date: 2003-10-02 23:29:34 by Dennis Scanland

Denis Scanland - MusicEmmissions