Joana Serrat

Joana Serrat is a singer and composer from Vic (Barcelona) who from an early age has been attracted to folk music and rock with American roots. This was largely due to the vast family record collection with which she grew up: from Roy Orbison to Neil Young, to Bruce Springsteen, passing through Xesco Boix, Grup de Folk, Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan. Dylan became a important artistic reference for some time. After a vital period in Dublin, in 2008 she released “Liffey” under the acronym J.S.T., a compendium of stark and completely acoustic songs that she went on to play in countries such as Portugal and France. After a fleeting moment of fun with The Sofa Dreams, that would become her second and last record as J.S.T, Joana Serrat started a search for herself that would give her greater understanding of her inner self. The first stop on this road to self-discovery was the auto edited double album “The Relief sessions” under her own name. Intimate and evocative, “The Relief Sessions” goes through different panoramas of the artist’s emotions via numerous sound registers that go from folk pop, to 90s indie rock, country accompanied by a hint of jazz. With this album the singer songwriter attracted more attention from the specialised press as well as from the public, which led to her being nominated as outstanding artist on the American web portal- based in Nashville- Noisetrade, one of her tracks was included in Liliana Torres’s film debut, “Family Tour”, in which she appears playing together with the well-known actress Núria Gago. She also performed at the catwalk of the Catalan fashion brand YERSE at the last edition of 080 Barcelona Fashion. While achieving all of this Joana Serrat was already creating the new repertoire for her next record. In January 2013 she sent a demo to three prestigious international producers. Two of them replied immediately that they wanted to collaborate on Joana’s new record. She chose Howard Bilerman, Canadian producer and musician, owner of the mythical hotel2tango studios, nominated for a Grammy for his production work on “Funeral” by Arcade Fire and who has also produced; Godspeed You! Black Emperor (winners of the Polaris Music Prize 2013- equivalent to the UK Mercury Prize- awarded to the best Canadian album every year), Vic Chesnutt and Wolf Parade amongst many others. At the beginning of autumn, a few weeks before recording began, Joana Serrat’s signing to El Segell del Primavera Sound was announced. The new album was recorded in Paco Loco’s studios in Cadiz, with Howard Bilerman. The band made up of illustrious musicians from the Barcelona scene- amongst them Edu Martínez (La Habitación Roja, Pumuky, Partido, Clem Snide) and David Soler (possibly the best pedal steel guitar player of our country) as well as the Canadian Gavin Gardiner, member of The Wooden Sky. The recording sessions were done with the whole band playing the songs live and this has reinforced the authentic sound, which is at times intimate and at other times highly intense. The record that will come out in a few months, was mixed in December in the aforementioned hotel2tango in Montreal, and was mastered by Harris Newman, an experienced sound engineer who has worked with Tindersticks and Arcade Fire themselves. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.