Lady Lazarus
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Lady Lazarus

San Francisco, California, United States | SELF

San Francisco, California, United States | SELF
Band Alternative Avant-garde

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

Music

Press


"80% Album Review from One Thirty BPM"

“Like listening to the upcoming James Blake record, Mantic shows the magic that space can create. And Lady Lazarus, whose name likely comes from a Sylvia Plath poem, knows how to use lack of sound to accentuate the actual sounds.” - One Thirty BPM


"80% Album Review from One Thirty BPM"

“Like listening to the upcoming James Blake record, Mantic shows the magic that space can create. And Lady Lazarus, whose name likely comes from a Sylvia Plath poem, knows how to use lack of sound to accentuate the actual sounds.” - One Thirty BPM


"Streogum Video and Album Premiere"

“Her work’s hushed and homemade, ambitious, affecting, and oddly polished in its specificity.” - Stereogum


"7.8 Album Review for Lady Lazarus' debut Mantic"

“The songs are full of places and things that were available to her… Sweat played every note. When she asks, ‘Who’s gonna sing it but me?’ on ‘Eye of the Storm’, it doesn’t feel like an idle question. Mantic thrives on the sense of being alone with the last voice in the world. Lots of people use music to try and escape their living rooms, but Lady Lazarus seems more interested in inviting us into hers.” - Pitchfork


"7/10 for "The Eye in the Eye of the Storm""

Fans of shadowy dream-pop will be pleased to discover San Jose's Lady Lazarus, whose ephemeral music for voice and piano makes Grouper sound overproduced. "The Eye in the Eye of the Storm" barely fulfills the minimum conditions of song. The piano part could be a novice exercise: In 4/4 time, the left hand drops a sustained chord as the right climbs a C major scale-- eight consecutive white keys-- over and over. That's it. The vocal line comes and goes casually, without fanfare. The tape machine runs loudly nearby. These rudimentary qualities allow us to feel how deeply inhabited and intimately alone the music is. Her voice is lovely, and nothing is over- or undersold. With slight drags, hesitations, and lunges on the piano, she wrings emotional volumes from that endlessly cycling scale. Though it's left implicit, you can feel the turbulence all around it, like a blizzard at at window. It makes this moment of uncanny stillness a shelter you want to stay inside. It's really slight, and more than ample. - Pitchfork


Discography

Home Recordings EP
http://ladylazarus.bandcamp.com/album/mantic

Mantic LP (Jan. 2011)
http://ladylazarus.bandcamp.com/album/mantic

Photos

Bio

Lady Lazarus is the solo project of Melissa Ann Sweat, a singer-songwriter, artist, poet, and creative writer from San Jose, Calif., who received breakthrough press in 2011 for her debut album, Mantic—including a 7.8 review from Pitchfork, and praise from Stereogum, One Thirty BPM (now Beats Per Minute), PopMatters, the Journal of Music, and many more.

Touching on dream pop and experimental folk, her spirited yet lo-fi sound has earned comparisons to Cat Power, Smog, Grouper, and Daniel Johnston, while her grand yet minimalist keyboard style nods to experimental composers like Philip Glass.

In addition to releasing her debut album, Lady Lazarus contributed vocals to last year's release from the Marshmallow Ghosts "supergroup," consisting of members of Black Moth Super Rainbow, Dreamend, Casket Girls, and Hospital Ships. The album garnered positive press from IFC.com, Impose, Consequence of Sound, among others. Pitchfork also premiered Lady Lazarus' latest video, "What It's Like," in October 2011, as she kicked off a West Coast tour, including playing FMLY Fest in Los Angeles.

This past summer, Lady Lazarus released music as part of the Graveface Charity Release Series along with Mount Eerie, Mike Watt, Xiu Xiu, Hospital Ships, and others.

She will soon be playing the CMJ Music Festival in NYC in mid-October 2012.