Music composition, songwriting, midi programming, live performance, arrangement, studio recording & mixing are some of the chores one-woman band SistaSara is capable of. Sara Fuga aka SistaSara was born in Venice, Italy, to an Italian mother and Nigerian father. A former session drummer and backing vocalist in numerous bands and projects in Italy since 1995, she moved to the UK in the spring of 2003 where she began studying music production independently. Currently residing in Oakland, California, the independent experimental dub music producer has recently released “Creation”, the 17th production by SistaSara which is also her 10th full length album to date.
“Creation” is, at the same time, an album to listen to in the background and a record you can totally concentrate on without being absolutely goddamn insane. This is a completely different story to regular Dub altogether.
Thanks in part to its heavy use of effects, not only as a way to set down a situation or atmosphere, but also sometimes to enhance and add something to the song’s instrumentation, each of the tracks are intensely varied and with reasonable lengths to them. It’s wonderfully executed, every song progressing as if you were making orbit around a planet before slowly drifting away and reaching for another celestial body to hang around with.
But, in terms of the songs, it’s a bit more complicated than just that. It is a classic, and it is a great experimental album with lots of live instrumental and vocal work. “Creation” is a mix of Dub rhythms, Trip Hop and ambient textures.
The genre, in a way, is excessively British, but SistaSara has added her own flavors to the mix. If you’re at all into any these genres, then you’ll find that this album is a luxurious progressive cornerstone of the genre that is not to be missed under any circumstance. SistaSara creates an entrancing aural journey that is spiced with a multitude of sounds, moods and rhythms.
These are not verse-chorus-verse pop songs that you can describe in a few sentences. These are tracks that need to be experienced personally as each will relay a diverse effect on individual listeners. They are more hypnotic than catchy, and more cadenced than simply rhythmic.
Some are interspersed with vocal, others are strictly instrumental. All are ingeniously creative and challenging. The album starts probably with the album’s most accessible track, “What We Call For (Peace)”, in terms of structure, melody and beat. As the album moves ahead deeper into its sonic nooks and crannies, so too does the complexity of the content.
Though you will still find tracks to snap your fingers and nod your head to, like “Own Your Liberation Riddim”, and “Wandering”, there are plenty of cuts to sink your mind and heart into. Standouts among them are, “The Path”, “Forward Stepper”, “Sista Take Over” and “The Beginning End”.
“Creation” is an album that shows the strength and power of SistaSara’s characteristic traits. The trippy atmospheres are kept alive in every arrangement, and the listener can choose from a variety of moods: happiness, mystique, and bliss, while there is also a subtle trace of social consciousness entangled within the framework, and the album sound’s totally coherent. Imagine yourself sitting down and listening to the album and making your mind utterly explode.
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