: sultry LA-based songstress Cuesta Loeb releases her dizzyingly fine first single on fierce panda on January 26th. It’s called ‘Dive’ it peddles an entrancing blend of crunchy guitars and gorgeously phased vocals and it’s one for all the romantics out there shoegazing into eachothers’ tearful eyes. “It's actually a love song ” Cuesta Loeb confesses. “It's a song about falling in love and finally wanting to be vulnerable and giving it all in a relationship diving in and not looking back.”
FEBRUARY 26TH 2018
LOS ANGELES BARDOT
(KCRW SCHOOL NIGHT)
It makes perfectly weird sense too: an NYC native Christina Cuesta Loeb (she dropped the "Christina" for her debut solo project) comes from a family of musicians. Born to world-renowned jazz guitarist Chuck Loeb and Spanish singer-songwriter/actress Carmen Cuesta she grew up between the US and Spain studying classical flute and bassoon. However Cuesta Loeb was unable to find her voice in classical music and in 2015 she moved to Los Angeles and began experimenting on her own songwriting and production.
Inspired by Green Day The Smashing Pumpkins Fiona Apple and (early) Sheryl Crow she combined her love of dark haunting melodies with dreamy ethereal instrumentation and vocals. She found her home somewhere in the world of Dream Pop with a blend of everything from acoustic ukuleles to Shoegaze-heavy guitars. Linking up with artist/producer Michael Garner (of Hunter Hunted) and guitarist/bassist/producer Blake Straus (Deepsleeper) and adding bassist Jordan Kleinman they honed their fiercely languid sound in their home studios in LA. Continuing the family theme sister Lizzie is also now part of the project singing playing guitar and producing.
Intriguingly Cuesta Loeb was picked up by fierce panda when the tiny indie label joined up with esteemed musical community ReverbNation to uncover some ace unsigned talent last October whereupon the ‘Dive’ track was carefully plucked from a pile of 3 726 musical hopefuls.
“ReverbNation came highly recommended by other artists I know ” she remembers. “It was awesome for presenting music and getting all the right resources organized in one place. It was also a great platform to connect with other artists and industry contacts. The opportunities to submit to the fierce panda portal were an added bonus - it is still surreal to me that we have been chosen for this opportunity this is such an important next step for us.”
A debut Cuesta Loeb album is due later in 2018. Until then feel free to ‘Dive’ in…