Ali Genevich – Queen City Sounds and Art

Laveda formed as a dream pop band in Albany, New York in 2018. The core duo of Ali Genevich and Jake Brooks released two outstanding albums of deeply introspective, atmospheric and tender records with 2020’s What Happens After and 2023’s A Place You Grew Up In. As though the title of the latter was a prompt to evolve creatively Laveda relocated to New York City the same year and whether it was already happening then or more came together once in the big city the band evolved in a decidedly different sonic direction without losing its instincts for crafting memorable melodies and vivid, emotionally vibrant and immediately relatable lyrics. 2025’s Love, Darla marked a change in style for a more gritty, more angular, almost No Wave sound as though Genevich and Brooks had delved further into the Sonic Youth catalog and found their way to the likes of Live Skull and, perhaps unrelated, The Cleaners From Venus. The new album sounds like the work of people who made the move to pursue their art further and didn’t come out the other side jaded. Instead transformed and challenged to do something to reflect their own development as people and artists.

Listen to our interview with Genevich and Brooks on Bandcamp and follow Laveda at the links below.

Laveda on Instagram

Laveda on Facebook

Laveda LinkTr.ee

The setting for the Laveda single “Clean” is a beach town in the off season and how those places can seem both incredibly lonely but also free of distraction and a good place to gain clarity and space for your psyche. The song itself is full of open spaces and nearly whispered vocals wandering amid gently strummed guitar and the hint of a background drone. The scene begins at dusk and the female lead, presumably Laveda singer Ali Genevich, journeys through the dark of night and the incoming tide, having a drink on a blanket and unwinding with running and dancing in the sand while offering poetic images of what it’s like to be well into adulthood and coming to terms with how things have changed in life and a desire to return to your roots to make some sense of your present but knowing that you just can’t because it’s largely gone and memories of how it wasn’t always so great and even if your current mindset isn’t some portrait of someone’s ideal or your own that you would rather not go back to a time in life when you didn’t know better, as appealing as it can seem in moments of vulnerability and melancholic reverie. It’s a heartbreaking song in a gentle way that poignantly captures what it feels like to be deeply ambivalent, adrift and needing to trust in where the seemingly aimless flow of your life will take you. Watch the video for “Clean” on YouTube and connect with Laveda at the links below. The group’s new album A Place You Grew Up in drops on April 14, 2023.