Ramona Lisa is the current alias of Chairlift’s Caroline Polachek.  Her new album Arcadia is Polachek’s first self-­produced solo record and will be released in the U.S. on April 15 on Terrible Records (April 14 on Pannonica in EU/ Japan and Mistletone in AUS/NZ). Completely composed in MIDI, it is a concept album of love songs that are nature allegories, and vice versa, which Polachek calls “Pastoral Electronic Music”.
The making of Arcadia was a year ­long process that began and ended in an empty studio in Rome’s Villa Medici and while on tour with her band, Chairlift. The record was made entirely on a laptop without instruments or external microphones – all vocals were sung directly into the computer, making use of hotel closets, quiet airport gates, and spare dressing rooms.
Although the album was created on a laptop, the result is a lush and uncannily tangible world of warm textures, reminiscent of analog tape processes rather than a hard drive. Virtual oboes and organs interweave with synthetic insects and quivering sine waves, animated by Polachek’s vocal at it’s most delirious and intimate yet.
Over the past year Polachek has been performing as Ramona Lisa in New York unannounced, incognito, with fully choreographed and costumed sets and will continue to do so worldwide in 2014. Ramona Lisa will play selected special dates in 2014, both announced and unannounced.
Watch the video for the title track “Arcadia” here.