When Angelica Garcia spoke to The Current's Music Director, David Safar, he asked her about her song "Orange Flower," wondering what the color meant to her. She responded:

"What I was thinking of when I wrote that line was that I had always heard that the red roses were a sign of true romance and really trying to impress someone, and that yellow roses were more like — you give them to your mom or something as a little gesture of gratitude. I was thinking of orange being in-between that, and how in several occasions, I have felt neither here nor there with someone, and it's a very frustrating feeling, to feel in-between and not have a totally defined place in someone's mind."

That in-between place might make Garcia uncomfortable, but it she seems to be making a home for herself in that unsettled spot. The 22-year-old grew up in Los Angeles to a family immersed in music: a mariachi-singing mother and a stepfather repping big label names like Los Lobos. Her stepfather quit the biz, became a preacher and moved the family to a small costal town in Virginia. Suddenly, the city girl was all alone in a no-street-lamp, too-many-cemeteries-per-capita, former Civil-War-era town.

That balance of city street smarts and eerie Southern storytelling create a unique lyrical viewpoint. Garcia is both a gregarious youth and a world-wary narrator. She brings in her love for Neil Young and the White Stripes (again mixing the city with the country) to musically blend her worlds. It's raw and emotional, but (with the help of Charlie Peacock, producer of Civil Wars and Switchfoot), Garcia pulls everything together with a bewitching tight and dark production.

Resources

Angelica Garcia - official site

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• Rising artist Angelica Garcia blends country, blues and rock