By Nicky
Baldrian
Larisa Stow is a Los Angeles based
singer/songwriter, she is currently getting tons of recognition
throughout the music press and her just released album
"Moment By Moment" is a strong album heavily leaning
towards artists like Paula Cole, Fiona Apple and Kate Bush. The
album is the first of it's kind to use the new DTS (Digital
Surround) format and is a uper album filled great passioante
songs.
Larisa has been singing all her life "I was in choir all
throughout school. I started writing songs when I realized no one
was writing about the issues that inspired me the most. So I
picked up the guitar, taught myself a few chords and I was off
and running"
What inspired
Larisa is the subject of dealing with death "I am inspired
to write about the light at the end of the tunnel and the journey
we take to get there." she explains " This world
inspires me. It is such an amazing combination of pain and beauty
and they are inseparable. When we dive into the pain of the human
experience and embrace it something beautiful is born. We learn
more about ourselves, what we believe, and what we want to create
and nurture. I believe that we are all flowers made from love
growing and reaching towards the light. If we don't, we die. This
is the foundation that I write upon."
"Moment By Moment took three years to write and record, the
songs chosen for the final selection are Larisa's personal
favorites. "A lot of these songs came from dreams or from
meditation. "Blue Mountain" came to me while I was deep
in meditation. I had just read a biography about Anandamayi Ma.
She was a famous Indian saint. Her life was a living example of
compassion. Her life story really affected me. I was meditating
on compassion inspired by her when the chorus came complete
musically and lyrically. It really felt like the song wrote me
rather than me writing the song. I love it when that happens. I
find that the messages come easier if I am in a very centered
place. The one exception to the rule on this album was
"Heaven" I wrote that song in New Orleans, Louisiana
(USA). While most people find New Orleans a fun party town I felt
a lot of sadness in the air. I could feel all the people who had
lived a life of slavery there. It felt like there were souls that
had never moved on. The angst of that town motivated me to write
"Heaven."
Larisa has already finished a lot of song for her next album
"It looks like we will be going back into the studio in
June. My band is diving much more into world beat sounds. We are
all into yoga and have been very influenced by sounds from India
and Native America. I am really looking forward to integrating
our pop rock foundation with these new influences." says
Larisa with joy, she continues " The Travel-in-Love Show is
my new "baby,' and its primary focus is on the empowerment
of the human spirit. It is an event that combines music,
multimedia projections, visual and performance art, movement, and
the healing arts. It also gives the audience an opportunity to
become part of the show as they are encouraged to bring hand
drums and other instruments to
co-create music at the end of the night. We donate part of the
proceeds to a local charity. Our main objective of this show is
to demonstrate our oneness as a people and to show how easy it is
to make a difference. I would
love to see this show become a traveling festival."
Musically Larisa
has achieved quite a bit in such a short time, she won the 1999
Los Angeles Music Award for the most outstanding female
singer/songwriter of the year. "That was quite an honor.
Recently I have been co- writing with Rick Hahn who was a
producer on Celine Dion's album "Falling into You". He
is an amazing songwriter as well and together we are quite a
team."
Larisa also gained some serious
recognition from Los Angeles Talent Search " One of my
performing highlights was when I earned special recognition as
one of the top 20 finalists out of the thousands of submissions
entered for the Los Angeles 98.7/Levi/Lilith Fair acoustic Talent
Search. This honor won me a performance at the El Rey Theater
that included a special guest performance by Lilith Fair
organizer and Grammy award winner, Sarah McLachlan."
Larisa is a
wonderful artist, her songs indeed are very influential, she
deserves much much more praise and one can only relish in the
songs are they are deep and very uplifting. We look forward to
Larisa's second album and we at Strutter invite you Larisa to
write a studio report for your new album when you enter the
studio. Her style, charm and charisma has enough power that i'm
sure the majority of the metal crowd will thoroughly enjoy.
You can visit her website at: http://www.larisastow.com for ordering info about the album, or
ask your local retailer to check it out for you.