Katalina - Sonic Groove (1996)

Another of my requests has been fulfilled, and I must share it with you all immediately! Many thanks to eurodanceboy for this amazing album download! :) My friend Bomitoni at Milk Carton Pop Stars did a feature on Katalina a few years ago, which intrigued me about this lovely lady. What he discovered is that her real name is Kara Wethington and she was originally from Chicago. The best known story goes that she was working part time in a recording studio and famed producer Jon St. James was making a demo for which the featured vocalist did not show up. He asked Kara to lay down the vocals and liked them so much that he kept them. And voila, Katalina was born! According to Kara in a recent interview, however, she actually used to walk by the studio (located in La Habra, California) during lunch breaks at high school and admired the gold records in the window. She walked in one day and met St. James and members of punk group The Vandals and told them she was a singer. St. James asked her to come back the next day to sing for them, but with the intention of laughing at her. But he liked her vocals and together they wrote a song. That song was "DJ Girl". It became a dance club smash, and also reached #86 on the Billboard Hot 100. This led to an album with Restless Records that was primarily produced by St. James, the brilliant man behind Stacey Q and former postees Bardeux. In fact, Bardeux member Acacia even co-produced the ballad "You'll Be My Future", which also became a single. Most songs were co-written by Katalina and St. James, and the album was a dance explosion, exploring euro-house, trance, electro and even a bit of freestyle, and she also does a great synthy remake of Berlin's "The Metro". The title track was also released as a single, but neither it or "You'll Be My Future" managed to hit. According to Kara, despite her touring, there was little promotion and the label didn't release the album. Even though it was eventually released on Thump Records, the lack of promotion killed it. A new track, a remake of the classic "Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered", appeared on the soundtrack to the film Simply Irresistible in 1999, but that was the last that was heard from Katalina. Kara, however, continued on as occasional vocalist (mainly with punk bands) and actress and now is primarily a fashion publicist. For more on what she's up to you can follow her on Twitter and read the interview I mentioned HERE. I'm just so pleased that she managed to release this one album and that now finally it is mine! :)

Video for DJ Girl

Live performance of DJ Girl on Ricki Lake

Download Sonic Groove

1		Eternity
2		DJ Girl
3		I'm Out Of Luck
4		Feel The Rhythm
5		My Boyfriend
6		You'll Be My Future
7		Something About The Way
8		Sonic Groove
9		For Your Love
10		You Disappear
11		Metro
12		Invisible