Kellarissa

Vancouver's Kellarissa performs under the name of Larissa Loyva, whose crystalline vocals and synthesizer experiments first reached listeners after she launched P:ano alongside Nick Krgovich in 1999. The project grew from a duo into a quartet and issued three albums across the 2000s, while Loyva simultaneously lent her talents to several other Vancouver-based groups such as the Choir Practice, Alunared, and FanShaw. Once P:ano dissolved and Krgovich joined former bandmates in No Kids, Loyva turned to solitary recording under the solo alias Kellarissa—a Finnish term meaning “in the basement”—working both domestically and in professional studios. Her first release, Flamingo, surfaced on Mint in 2008, the same imprint that had housed P:ano and the Choir Practice, with Moon of Neptune arriving three years later.

She subsequently traveled as keyboardist and backing vocalist with Destroyer, later taking the same roles in How to Dress Well’s touring ensemble. During this period she also partnered with Elisha May Rembold—known from the Lost Lovers Brigade and Shimmering Stars—to create the synth-pop duo Fake Tears; the pair joined Mint’s roster and delivered Nightshifting in 2015. Whenever spare time allowed, Loyva resumed personal work and cultivated a more assertive synth-pop palette she partly labeled “femme psych electronica.” That direction shaped Ocean Electro, her first solo album in seven years, which Jay Arner recorded and which Mint Records issued in March 2018.