New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Suzanne Santo's brand new album, "Yard Sale", delves into the ideas of discarding wants, sentimental treasures, largely in the form of people and places that have lost meaning or are no longer of service-letting things fall away to make space for better things to come. "Yard Sale" is out now on all streaming platforms.
Austin, Texas-based songwriter, singer, and multi-instrumentalist Santo wrote all twelve songs between a farmhouse on the Irish coast, long bus rides, backstage writing sessions, and hotel stays-all during a world tour with Hozier, of which Santo was an opening act and a member of the headliner's band. Fans will likely also know Santo from her work in musical duo Honeyhoney, but after one last gig with
Hozier at Glastonbury, she was eager to get back to her solo career and headed straight to Los Angeles to begin working with co-producer John Spiker on what would become Yard Sale.
The resulting album presents Santo at the very top of her game musically, writing her own string arrangements and singing each song in an agile, acrobatic voice-perhaps in part due to the cathartic making-of process and what that has meant for her professionally and personally. At times she bridges the gap between indie-rock and neo-soul. On other tracks, she mixes gospel influences with a deconstructed R&B beat. Fans will hear layers of spacey, atmospheric electric guitar and Shakey Graves on a rainy-day ballad driven forward by a metronomic drum pattern, and
Gary Clark Jr. punctuating with fiery fretwork.
A tireless creator, Santo has built her sound in the grey area between Americana, Southern-gothic soul, and forward-thinking rock & roll. It's a sound that nods to her past-a childhood spent in the Rust Belt which is also where she learned to love a yard sale-and the world tour that took her from Greece to Glastonbury as a member of Hozier's band-while still exploring new territory. The Cleveland, Ohio-born artist's creative output also extends to the screen, having had acting roles in several series and features. With Yard Sale, Santo boldly moves forward, staking her claim once again as an Americana innovator. It's an album inspired by the past, written by an artist who's only interested in the here-and-now. And for Suzanne Santo, the here-and-now sounds pretty good.
