Kellarissa
Ocean Electro (Mint Records)

Larissa Loyva is a mainstay of the Vancouver music scene—or at least the corner of said scene dominated by Mint Records. A member of p:ano, the Choir Practice, and most recently the duo Fake Tears (with Elisha Rembold), Loyva is also a solo artist, releasing music as Kellarissa.

Her third album under that name, Ocean Electro finds Loyva in a contemplative space, pondering matters ecological (on “Black Sea”) and personal (“Too Drunk to Be Afraid”). Sonically, the LP expands upon the relatively spare ambiance of Kellarissa’s previous outings—namely 2008’s Flamingo and 2011’s Moon of Neptune.

Loyva still clearly has a knack for the ethereal. “Hey Hey Rosé” is a droning wonder of synth loops over which more and more vocal tracks are added until the singer has become an angelic one-woman choir.

The record kicks off, though, with a one-two punch of more up-tempo numbers that recall Fake Tears’ more beat-centred tracks: the new-wave-esque “Ocean Electric” and the electro-disco banger “Black Sea”. Thematically, Ocean Electro isn’t the cheeriest album you’ll hear this year—“Poppies in July” is a Sylvia Plath poem set to music!—but it might well turn out to be the prettiest.