Lady Lazarus — All My Love in Half Light (2013) |
Lady Lazarus — All My Love in Half Light
Location: San José ~ Los Angeles, California
Album release: January 29, 2013
Record Label: self-released
Duration: 41:17
Tracks:
01. Lapsarian 3:28
02. Goudunov 5:36
03. Wonder, Inc. 6:32
04. Eventide 4:42
05. Edge 2:10
06. Argosy 5:42
07. Constant Apples 3:11
08. Do Not Go Gentle 4:53
09. Gleam 5:03
Official Website: http://www.ladylazarus.net
Bandcamp: http://ladylazarus.bandcamp.com
Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/Lady+Lazarus
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ladylazarusintheory
Press contact:
Agent:
REVIEW
By Philip Cosores on January 28th, 2013 (Rating: ***½)
√ Lady Lazarus’s 2011 debut Mantic (http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14952-mantic/) exhibited a songwriter in her musical infancy, as Melissa Sweat commandeered a Sylvia Plath reference and created the album with no real experience or training, having begun learning piano just a couple of years prior. Where Sweat’s proficiency could not take her, her creativity and guts did, resulting in wistful sketches where her introspection and the listeners’ coexist. The biggest downside to such raw material is that it’s impossible to recreate, dependent on inexperience and a lack of inhibitions.
√ Sweat is at peace with this on All My Love In Half Light, embracing her growth as a musician and as a songwriter. Where Mantic collected moments of beauty and displayed them as a single tapestry, here, Sweat introduces her aptitude for creating singular songs, soaring beyond what her previous work foreshadowed. “Wonder, Inc.” is Sweat’s finest composition yet, opening with a spare, crawling verse in which her words linger lightly over three minutes before backing into an instantly familiar refrain. This flirtation with pop accessibility seems almost haphazard, an unexpected and affecting result of her routine and her ambition. “Eventide” follows this lead, with Sweat tilling the idea of repetition for its possibilites, flaunting her vocal shortcomings in a humanizing and believable turn.
√ For better and for worse, All My Love In Half Light also sees Lady Lazarus finding her footing as a musician, and is a less cohesive and consistent statement than Mantic. √ Sweat exhibits a front-porch drawl on the dusty accordion-backed “Lapsarian”, seeming out of step with the church-house clarity of “Edge”, neither fitting with the dueling pitches of “Argosy”. Her lyrical meditations unite the collection, like narration in a Terrance Malick film, but this is not enough to keep All My Love In Half Light from feeling transitional — a part of her journey. The heights she reaches make it easy to forget that we’re watching a born-artist becoming a musician, usually a private process that Sweat shares with intimacy, with each slight stumble a step closer to her goal.
Essential Tracks: “Wonder, Inc.”, “Gleam”
Fortaken: http://consequenceofsound.net
-------------------------------------------------------------------
BIO
√ Lady Lazarus is the solo project of Melissa Ann Sweat, a singer-songwriter, artist, poet, and creative writer from San Jose, California now living in Los Angeles, known for her enchanting and minimalist songs for mainly voice and piano. Her music touches on dream pop and experimental folk, and has been compared to Cat Power, Smog/Bill Callahan, Joanna Newsom, Grouper, and Daniel Johnston, among others, while nodding to composers like Philip Glass and Erik Satie. Lady Lazarus received breakthrough press last year for her debut album, Mantic, including a 7. 8 review from Pitchfork, and praise from Stereogum, One Thirty BPM, the Journal of Music, and many others here and abroad. © Papa Vic Photography
√ Taken from the Sylvia Plath poem of the same name, Lady Lazarus began in 2008 when Melissa started teaching herself keyboard, and writing and recording songs while living in San Francisco. Inspired by a cross-country train trip, she moved to Savannah, Georgia in the fall of 2010 and toured along the East Coast and Southeast in support of her self-released debut. Lady Lazarus released new music in summer 2012 as part of Graveface Records’ Charity Release Series along with Mount Eerie, Xiu Xiu, Mike Watt, and other artists; she also played the CMJ Music Festival in NYC in October.
Lady Lazarus — All My Love in Half Light (2013) |
Lady Lazarus — All My Love in Half Light
Location: San José ~ Los Angeles, California
Album release: January 29, 2013
Record Label: self-released
Duration: 41:17
Tracks:
01. Lapsarian 3:28
02. Goudunov 5:36
03. Wonder, Inc. 6:32
04. Eventide 4:42
05. Edge 2:10
06. Argosy 5:42
07. Constant Apples 3:11
08. Do Not Go Gentle 4:53
09. Gleam 5:03
Official Website: http://www.ladylazarus.net
Bandcamp: http://ladylazarus.bandcamp.com
Last.fm: http://www.last.fm/music/Lady+Lazarus
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ladylazarusintheory
Press contact:
Agent:
REVIEW
By Philip Cosores on January 28th, 2013 (Rating: ***½)
√ Lady Lazarus’s 2011 debut Mantic (http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14952-mantic/) exhibited a songwriter in her musical infancy, as Melissa Sweat commandeered a Sylvia Plath reference and created the album with no real experience or training, having begun learning piano just a couple of years prior. Where Sweat’s proficiency could not take her, her creativity and guts did, resulting in wistful sketches where her introspection and the listeners’ coexist. The biggest downside to such raw material is that it’s impossible to recreate, dependent on inexperience and a lack of inhibitions.
√ Sweat is at peace with this on All My Love In Half Light, embracing her growth as a musician and as a songwriter. Where Mantic collected moments of beauty and displayed them as a single tapestry, here, Sweat introduces her aptitude for creating singular songs, soaring beyond what her previous work foreshadowed. “Wonder, Inc.” is Sweat’s finest composition yet, opening with a spare, crawling verse in which her words linger lightly over three minutes before backing into an instantly familiar refrain. This flirtation with pop accessibility seems almost haphazard, an unexpected and affecting result of her routine and her ambition. “Eventide” follows this lead, with Sweat tilling the idea of repetition for its possibilites, flaunting her vocal shortcomings in a humanizing and believable turn.
√ For better and for worse, All My Love In Half Light also sees Lady Lazarus finding her footing as a musician, and is a less cohesive and consistent statement than Mantic. √ Sweat exhibits a front-porch drawl on the dusty accordion-backed “Lapsarian”, seeming out of step with the church-house clarity of “Edge”, neither fitting with the dueling pitches of “Argosy”. Her lyrical meditations unite the collection, like narration in a Terrance Malick film, but this is not enough to keep All My Love In Half Light from feeling transitional — a part of her journey. The heights she reaches make it easy to forget that we’re watching a born-artist becoming a musician, usually a private process that Sweat shares with intimacy, with each slight stumble a step closer to her goal.
Essential Tracks: “Wonder, Inc.”, “Gleam”
Fortaken: http://consequenceofsound.net
-------------------------------------------------------------------
BIO
√ Lady Lazarus is the solo project of Melissa Ann Sweat, a singer-songwriter, artist, poet, and creative writer from San Jose, California now living in Los Angeles, known for her enchanting and minimalist songs for mainly voice and piano. Her music touches on dream pop and experimental folk, and has been compared to Cat Power, Smog/Bill Callahan, Joanna Newsom, Grouper, and Daniel Johnston, among others, while nodding to composers like Philip Glass and Erik Satie. Lady Lazarus received breakthrough press last year for her debut album, Mantic, including a 7. 8 review from Pitchfork, and praise from Stereogum, One Thirty BPM, the Journal of Music, and many others here and abroad. © Papa Vic Photography
√ Taken from the Sylvia Plath poem of the same name, Lady Lazarus began in 2008 when Melissa started teaching herself keyboard, and writing and recording songs while living in San Francisco. Inspired by a cross-country train trip, she moved to Savannah, Georgia in the fall of 2010 and toured along the East Coast and Southeast in support of her self-released debut. Lady Lazarus released new music in summer 2012 as part of Graveface Records’ Charity Release Series along with Mount Eerie, Xiu Xiu, Mike Watt, and other artists; she also played the CMJ Music Festival in NYC in October.