STACY ROBIN, Where Truth Lies

In an industry where many independent artists who have awesome, inspirational “day jobs” still prefer to hide their alter egos so as to keep the focus on their musical artistry, Stacy Robin stands out by putting it all out there. It’s right there in the first line of her bio.

Beyond her years of accolades from L.A. Music Awards, Las Vegas FAME Awards and Producers Choice Awards – and countless songs appearing on commercials and TV/Film (Toyota, Nestle, The Young and the Restless), the Americana/folk/indie pop singer, songwriter and all-around musical Renaissance woman is also a biochemist by day. When she’s not being nominated for a Critics Award, an LA Music Award for Best Female Singer/Songwriter or an International Acoustic Award, she’s a lab director for a Cedar Sinai Medical Center Research program.

In both realities of her life, Stacy has discovered the importance of chemistry = by day, tapping into its properties coming up with breakthroughs in medicine, and lately in the studio, fusing her eclectic artistry with that of genre-transcendent multi-instrumentalist, producer and renowned “sound painter” David Vito Gregoli. Working their collective magic on Stacy’s provocative and insightful, soul-stirring and empowering latest album Where Truth Lies, the two artfully blend her rootsy Americana aesthetic and passion for reflective, metaphor-rich storytelling and his penchant for exotic rhythms, colorful soundscapes and world music aesthetic.

As a longtime fan of Vito’s global-minded contemporary instrumental work, it’s personally fascinating to hear the way he brings his keen ear and soundscaping to bring the vision of a soulful, spiritually in tune artist to fruition. The centerpiece track – and second lead single – “Drive” is a bit of a polyrhythmic outlier in that it ventures further than the other 11 tunes to freewheeling world music/rock and roll, but the excitement and sense of liberation we feel as Stacy regales us with her vibrant, sensuous rasp and feisty personality on a ride of danger and destiny truly makes it this generation’s version of “Born to Be Wild.”  

Beyond “Drive,” Stacy seems to be imparting her world weary wisdom about life’s travails and gratitude for its breakneck roller coaster of ups and downs, all laden with a sense that while nothing in life is permanent, it’s that impermanence that gives us meaning, and love and gratitude are always on hand take us through and endure as we navigate the bloodied rocks in the stream. From the gracefully lyrical opening anthem “Sing to My Heart” – an exhortation to embrace the day despite life’s crippling day to day setbacks through the wistful and meditative closing acknowledgement that “All Good Things” must end, the singer takes us on a passionate, heartfelt journey through the many facets of a life fully embraced and lived.

Along the way, supported foundationally and complemented by Vito’s own expansive artistry, Stacy intricately weaves majestic moments of joy and optimism and the reality of life’s sadness and passing, as if to say, this is the tapestry we’re given, so let’s just find our personal moments of magic along the way. Vito adds some mystical touches and an immersive cool percussiveness “As We Fall,” which finds her taking us through love in different seasons and connecting us intricately with the nature around us. Merging funky folk/rock and effusive world grooves, Vito elevates Stacy’s advice to self on the high energy “Turn the Tide”: “When the waves are crashing higher/That’s how I avoid the rocks below/Try and keep my head above the surface.”

As Where Truth Lies flows along, one of its most impactful overall aspects is the knowing, thought and soul-provoking way Stacy reflects on life’s kaleidoscope of moments as series of endings and “Beginnings,” a plucky little banjo-tinged tune which reminds us that “for every end, there’s a beginning” as we search for guidance. Vito adds a mournful Irish flavored violin/fiddle to “Memories End,” a graceful acoustic tune about the reality of death that urges us to focus less on the loss than the things time cannot erase.

Stacy tackles the same concept from another perspective on “Mourn Me Not,” which opens with the innocence of nature’s birdcalls before opening to a piano driven ballad filled with gratitude for a life brilliantly lived: “Mourn me not for I have loved/Fly me to the heavens above.” She balances a charming, wistful remembrance of a relationship that’s ending (the soothing, dreamy “Goodbye”) with the hope that the end of physical life here may just be a door to love continuing on “The Other Side.” In the midst of all this inviting reflection, she takes a moment to charm the pants off us listeners with the loping, high-spirited love song that exults in the moments of perfect synchronicity between two people.