guzzalina

Guzzalina is the electronic music project of Lisa Rocket, a genre-transcending producer who is also a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter.

Rocket has traveled many roads, having played in punk and folk bands, performed solo singer-songwriter gigs, toured regionally, and recorded with several indie groups. A lifelong electronic music listener, additional influences range from HONK bands (she plays in three) to jazz (she has a duet project that reinterprets old standards) to world beats (including batucada, African, and taiko drumming) to quirky female-fronted projects like tUnE-yArDs.

Her debut solo electronic album, Beat Smoothie, is an indie blend of danceable beats, home-studio recordings, jazz, funk, honk and global samples, heartfelt lyrics and a sound that has both smoothness and sharp edges. The album includes 12 original tracks - half with lyrics, and half mostly instrumental dance tracks that weave in energy and musicality.

Never boring, the album’s 12 tracks move from old-school beats, like a blend of Luscious Jackson and Beth Orton, to newer keyboard-and-guitar-driven indie sounds in the vein of Little Dragon, Sylvan Esso and Phantogram. The tracks with vocals include Make Do (tracks 1 and 12 - extended mix), with its funky basslines driving a catchy, upbeat sad song; But I Think, which was originally written while living abroad after hearing the news of a family member's cancer; Things I Never Had, a hypnotic journey through regret; and A Little Euphoria, a slower meander through spacey, psychedelic trip-hop.

Beat Smoothie includes an instrumental track started on election night, 2016 (Election Night) as well as several energetic dance tracks with global samples -- including mash-ups of indie rock classics (Looks Like Rain) and Boards-of-Canada-esque keyboards over a driving Mediterranean beat (Making Time) with a guest appearance from the Appalachias. Then there's the dub-flavored paen to the Spacey Invasion, like a soundtrack for a dub robot melting down. Rounding out the album are Solid Hymn, a club-ready hymn to the dance floor; and Beat Smoothie - representing the idea of the whole album: transcendental honk-tronica, complex beats, blended up and served to your ears for maximum fun. 

Beat Smoothie represents the journey of Lisa Rocket coming back to music in a new way: DIY, solo and on her own terms.  Although she has been playing and writing since her teen years, music took a back burner when she went back to school. Now with a PhD, she spends her days as an academic researcher. But the fire to make music has never left, and in 2016, she decided to start recording some of her original songs at night and on weekends. 

As an exercise in DIY, she not only played all the parts, she also recorded, mixed, and mastered everything herself; created the cover art (a photo of one of her exploded paper lantern sculptures); and is self-releasing on her own label, r0ck3t r3c0rds. She’s also making the music videos and visualizers, with the help of her Boston music and arts community.