Regular Columnists

Artist: Laya Fisher
Genre: Dance/Rock
CD Review:
Did Laya have a bad childhood, was she mistreated, or is she just great at taking on characters with the confidence of a newly formed butterfly? If anything, she seems to use the universal solvent of music to wash away the anger burning just under her skin.

‘Stepmother Song’ keeps asking ‘am I in the way of your perfect family?’ within a wild dance-rock context, bubbling over with the regal attitude of a fresh adult who doesn’t have to take this anymore. She can burst out into song ANYtime she feels like it, writing any damn thing she pleases without worrying about what it’ll do to Christmas presents. You might call them personal-political songs.

She has the nerve to ask ‘when you have your pick from the cream of the crop / do you like it on bottom do you like it on top? / Today you want Dick, tomorrow you’ll have Jane / Sex is sex, we’re all one and the same’ from ‘Dick & Jane’, and complains about ‘Scarlet’, painting a sweltering slut image of the subject of this 2nd song on the EP from mp3.com. ‘Scarlet is a whore / an apple rotten to the core / a firecracker carrot top / a danger signal flame.’ Forgetting sexual orientation, Laya has herself rather a firecracked, vixen way about her as well. A tough/smooth voice you’ll want to keep as a friend.

The music moves and she goes right along with it, blending the horns and strong-woman sound of the 70s while gigging her own electronic pulses and slightly techno rhythms into the very hardiest strands of her spider web. These are 5 songs from a singer you’ll Want to hear more of soon. To seduce you. To dance to the bitchin’.