Kevin Bronson on September 26th, 2017

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La Louma is the new musical vehicle for Lauren Ross, an L.A.-based artist who’s been involved in music from both sides, as a player and an executive. As a player, her credits include playing brass and woodwinds on St. Vincent’s 2007 album “Marry Me” (bassoon was Ross’s instrument of choice at Berklee). As co-founder of Terrorbird Publishing, she works in A&R, licensing and business development. And now with Terrorbird colleague Terra Lopez, they have founded the queer-friendly label Bitchwave Records.

La Louma’s debut album “Let the World Be Flooded Out,” out Nov. 3 via that label, is a long-in-the-works bloodletting covering social, political and identity issues. Ross confesses that over the years she had profound battles with identity issues, often inflicted, as they tend to be, by those on the outside. “It took multiple breakdowns, lots of physical therapy, anti-depressants and a move across the country before the clouds began to part, the music began to come,” the introduction to “Flooded” explains.

“The Decline of Nations” is the album’s opening rocker, an urgent call to arms that Ross wrote “about the horrors of the Syrian Civil War and refugee crisis, as well as expressing an internal wish for Ruth Bader Ginsberg to never retire. It’s taken on an amplified meaning for me now — a rallying cry to myself (and everyone else) to stay engaged and never give up.”

||| Stream: “The Decline of Nations”