by Chelsea Lim

Singer-songwriter Sabrina Claudio establishes herself in the alternative soul scene with her debut EP Confidently Lost released this early March. Claudio initially gained momentum through her Youtube covers of famous pop records and other Top 40 hits under the username UrbanPouvoir. Her smooth, running vocals provided an alternative interpretation to the songs that we have heard over and over, giving the covers a more glistening and crystalline finish.

In this solo project, Claudio shows that she is more than just a singer that can cover other artists, but a young woman who is able to tell her story through an instrumentation and voice that is certain to become signature. Her vocals are full of breathy angelic runs as she effortlessly switches from her higher falsetto notes to lower, textured melodies. The album’s instrumentations are filled with soul and jazz infusions while giving elements of alternative R&B. Most records are also a blend of traditional guitar and piano playing with a soft addition of simple synthesized beats. She lets her vocals tell her story, and allows the music to become the backdrop for her own perspective.

Her sound is like an old record, familiar to the ear but completely unexposed and truthful to the world. In her record, “Runnin’ Through Lovers”, she questions how people can fall so deeply and let go of love so quickly, perhaps suggesting that she has a hard time grasping this concept herself as well as living by it. She questions, “Why do people move so fast, I don’t understand. How you love someone today and don’t tomorrow?”

In “Orion’s Belt”, she discovers the most intimate form of love, one that is mentally stimulating and vulnerable. She expresses how the passion she shares with the other is so strong that it is almost unbearable between them, but that it somehow draws them even closer together.

The most notable track, is the album’s title, “Confidently Lost”. This is where she identifies herself as being unidentified, fighting against not only the stigma of having to be “defined” in the industry but also in today’s society as a whole. A light blues and jazz record, she discusses her certainty in her imperfection that is extremely rare to be stated so openly to this day. “Constantly evolving, steadily revolving, I am confidently lost. I don’t need you to find me. You don’t define me.” She further rejects the often silent idea of maintaining a level of perfection to others, with the knowledge that it does not exist.

Confidently Lost is what she has already proven herself to be and as a young artist whose sound has the power to both channel an old soul as well as a certain naivety, Sabrina Claudio is bound to pioneer the new soul and blues movement.