Seja – Live at the Sando

Just a quick post about Seja‘s enchanting performance co-headlining with Otouto at The Sando on Friday. With a little over 100 attendees the upstairs stage provided the ideal intimate venue. Seja’s own custom felt-craft banners adorned her keyboards discreetly covering the intricate network of cables protruding out of the instruments. The room was crammed full of Indie kids with several opting to take a seat on the floor to contain their enthusiasm and anticipation of the gig. Shortly after our arrival Seja and her band took the stage and started pumping out her trademark rich synth sounds.

The performance itself was very entertaining. The all girl 3-piece overcame the initial technical hitches of recurring feedback and barely audible microphones to put on a fun and up-beat set that is congruent with Seja’s electro-pop style. What was refreshing to see was that the band was really enjoying themselves and any sense of pretension was non-existent as all members moved about stage switching instruments and contributing vocals. Perhaps the best example of this lightheartedness was during “I’ll Get to You” towards the end of the set when Seja and her guitarist punctuated the end of every line in the verse with percussive finger clicks and finally in the last song where the girls abandoned their instruments for a karaoke style sing off with complimentary choreographed dance. The girls from Otouto joined them on stage to bust out the dance moves as well.

All in all a very pleasant evening and entertaining performance. I also picked up a hard copy of her debut which was $20 well spent. Some nice tracks from it are sampled below.

Mad props to Jon for the excellent iphone photography contribution.

Framed You In Fiction – Seja

Silver In My Eye – Seja

Seja

Finally a post about Australian music. Quite overdue in my opinion but there’s just too many other interesting artists to post about. Seja however is quite worthy of the attention and justifies the break in international focus with one of the most refreshing electro-pop releases in some time.

I first heard her track “I’ll Get To You” whilst listening to Triple J‘s home & hosed Australian music program and cooking a nice stir fry, honey-soy beef I believe. I was instantly hooked on the tune and neglected the wok to pay close attention to the lethargic back-announcing and ensure I got all the details regarding this little gem. Much like we all did back in the days before search engines. I checked her out online and discovered she was the short lived addition to Regurgitator a few years back when they decided they needed some extra oomph! live. Well I am glad that collaboration was short lived, because the solo product is outstanding.

Like her contemporaries Ellie Goulding, Marina Diamandis and Little Boots (all British and exceedingly popular last year) Seja’s sound is synth-centric with breathy, soft vocals. Unlike her UK counterparts her tunes possess great depth, something often lacking in this genre. Quite simply it is rich synths, reliable drum machines and lush vocal melodies combined elegantly and effectively.

Seja plays the Sando in Newtown on the 23rd of April. Happymusic will be there in eager anticipation. Lead track “I’ll Get To You” off Seja’s debut LP, released over the weekend,  is available as a sample below. You can purchase the record, “We Have Secrets But Nobody Cares”, here.

I’ll Get To You – Seja