Solitude is a place Sedona knows well. Her name – evocative of open skies and red earth – embodies her free-spirited ways/nature. The mountains, hillsides, and water towers of her birthplace in Chatsworth, California became a home-away-from-home, as she found herself constantly running to them, finding herself in nature, motivated by the adventurous, feral spirit that’s always been buzzing within her. Her butterfly essence came from a semi-nomadic lifestyle of moving from neighborhood to neighborhood over the years. Her mother, a songwriter, and father, a piano tuner – music has always been her lighthouse. Her first songs were eulogies for dead pets and roadkill she would find while exploring the valley.
What started as pre-teen, afternoon, sunshine-pop-poetry, grew into college-grade, cover-performances of her mother’s original songs. While studying The Art of Storytelling at The New School in Brooklyn, “Writing for me is an everyday thing,” she muses, “I’ve realized I often speak in melody, in a way, I think in song. Conversations, dreams, thoughts, feelings, premonitions, eavesdroppings on the subway–one thing leads to another. A story, catch-phrase, or grouping of words will typically start to form in my mind’s eye, then comes a melody. Or vice versa.”
The singer’s full-length debut record explores the complexity of womanhood, projecting coming-of-age themes onto the pastoral sensuality of nature. Feelings of self-inflection and resurrection are investigated under a flickering porchlight. Soaking wet bikini bottoms drape over the balcony’s edge. Bluebirds sigh in the distance. “Sonically, these songs feel the most true to me,” she explains, “they’re warmer, simpler, and have a lot more guitars.” Fleetwood Mac, Lou Reed, and The Cars have been frontrunners for her musically. Across these songs, no stone is too small to be turned, however blurred the details may feel. And some of that distance is by design – this collection of songs (which Sedona refers to as “mirage pop”) was stitched together between 2020 and 2024 in the two places she’s called home – Brooklyn and Los Angeles.
On Getting Into Heaven, Sedona builds on the momentum of Rearview Angel, her 2020 EP, favoring confessional lyrics and nostalgic instrumentation inspired by pop rock and Americana touchstones à la Bonnie Raitt, Laura Nyro, and Stevie Nicks. The time-honored sounds of classic Americana dotted throughout Getting Into Heaven serve as guideposts that Sedona follows along the time-beaten path of self-discovery, answering questions begged by the human experience–eventually uncovering her own identity as a woman and beyond along the way. “All the quality trouble I get myself into makes songwriting a real comforting anchor in my life, even if half the trouble’s in my mind,” says Sedona. The album’s haunting closing track, “When An Old Flame Flickers,” is the song most rooted in the three-chords-and-the-truth tradition. She sings, “When an old flame flickers and proves not to be the one / I gotta keep my head held high…” more self-soothing than declarative.
So much of the songwriting on Getting Into Heaven marries striking imagery with something a bit off-kilter, like dirt-caked bottoms of feet on a crisp hotel bed. Sedona chooses to offset vulnerability by juxtaposing it against angst-filled, reverb-dripped soft rock dramatics (as on “Underneath” or “Every Once In A While”) evoking a rural town’s main radio station–flipping from soft, crooning country to eighties power ballads. On the dreamy, richly textured guitar tracks “She’s So Pretty” (featuring Claud) and “Deja Vu,” she channels the untamed vulnerability of a freckle-faced Pollyanna, free of self-judgment and full of a sort of just-been-kissed hopefulness, singing “It happened, it was right. Your touch laid me in the light again…” The quiet aubade “Best Kept Secret” practices a withheld confession–she and her lover lying on an iced-tea-stained gingham blanket in a golden field–purring with a soft power, “I’m the best kept secret in your life…”
Perhaps the older sister of singles “Sharkbite” and “Touch and Go”, “Every Once In A While” is a stand-alone track that coalesces grief with commanding anthemics evocative of the 90s and leading ladies like Sheryl Crow and Courtney Love. It’s soft rock that leans slightly more country at times, fusing the genres that have influenced her to arrive at this sunlit, dew-dropped, and ethereal patchwork quilt of genre: a refreshing blend of Velvet Americana, Mirage Pop, Pageant Rock.
As for what’s next, Sedona already has tons of songs in the works for her next album: “I’m excited to record on some older gear so it matches my voice better. And I want to do it live.” Heaven is wherever you want it to be. Maybe it’s the hum of crickets over the creaking swing on the wraparound porch. The sound of bacon crisping in the pan on Sunday morning. For listeners of this album, you’re already there.
Publicity Contacts
Press Kit
Photos
