Seattle's Laguna officially formed in 1998 and is the creation of songwriter/drummer/programmer Shane Peck and vocalist/lyricist Lydia Nor. These two are joined by small squad of backing musicians.
The musical style is a mish-mash of chilled electro pop, soft soul, reggae/dub and Jazzy noodling.
On Space Boy, verbal put downs "liar" and "pain in the ass" are delivered so sweetly they sound like compliments. Soca is a very tacky approximation of calypso. Actually none of the ten tracks make any lasting impact and they glide by to blend into one like a large pink meringue.
Nor tries her hardest to be sensual and sassy but only ends up sounding like a washed out version of Sade. Her efforts are not helped by having to compete with the dense and over fussy production values. One result of this is that the lyrics are largely unintelligible.
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The cover art by Nanda Wilson using soft pastel shades gives quite an accurate indication of the music - superficially pretty but too sickly sweet.
Laguna website
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