some praise for Nerve Up:
--------------'A unique, brilliant debut…we should celebrate LoneLady as the arrival of a fresh and invigorating voice whose talent transcends time and space and influence' NME 9/10
'Striking…' Q 4 stars
'Spartan beauty' Uncut 3 stars
Pitchfork 7.7
---------------about LoneLady…excerpt from the Guardian.co.uk by Paul Morley:
At the centre, and the edge, of the music is the electric guitar, which made this form of austere, anxious minimalism less electro and a spike, a fret, a slash, a snap, a pluck, a ravage more post-punk.
Campbell took on and took in to her heart a particular history of guitar rock that began at various points in the 20th century; these points would take in, say, the Kinks, the Velvet Underground, Wire, Gang of Four, Public Image Ltd, Joy Division,Josef K, the Fire Engines…
There is a Manchester thing going on there as well, so that those of us of a certain age raised on a sound of Manchester that began with Buzzcocks's Spiral Scratch and went very quickly from there to Magazine, Joy Division, the Fall, Ludus and Blue Orchids – not forgetting 30-odd miles away something of that spirit tripping inside Echo and the Bunnymen – could sense in LoneLady not so much an insipid sentimentalised nostalgia for that sort of shape, purpose and attack and the time it emerged but just a fascination with how frustration, anger, curiosity and liberation, as inspired in locations dragged and deformed by history, could be turned into an amplified rock sound that seemed indebted more to the atmosphere of subversive science fiction and a sentence by Susan Sontag than the blues.
There is a lot about LoneLady that is 1978-1981/2, but the 79/81 that was thinking ahead and wondering what rock music could sound like in 2010/11/12 if, can you imagine, it made it that far.
You get the feeling she would like to stay forever inside the enclosed world where you are embarking for the first time on such an adventure…Then again, when you make the kind of stirred, biting music she does, you're not hoping to be entirely invisible. You're just hoping to be visible without sacrificing the explosive shyness that in the first place makes you do the things you in the way that you do them.
for article in full:
guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jan/22/lonelady
-----------------biography:
Julie Campbell, otherwise known as LoneLady, was born in Ashton, grew up in Audenshaw and has lived near the city centre of Manchester for the past 10 years. Campbell came from an art background, gaining a Fine Art degree from Manchester Metropolitan University, and began making economical, scratchy, punchy four-track recordings with mainly guitar and a drum machine in 2005. Tiny self-made label Filthy Home Records released two singles and an EP, all recorded on 4 track. These early recordings were well received locally and nationally. Her first live date outside of Manchester was a showcase at 2006's South by Southwest festival. Campbell initially played solo using a drum machine but later met Andrew Cheetham who became her drummer. Also that year LoneLady inaugurated Too Pure's Singles Club with 'Early The Haste Comes' released in a limited edition of 500 copies, and it marked the LoneLady's first sessions in a proper studio. They later also recorded 'Marble' in the studio. LoneLady signed to Warp and released the single 'Immaterial' before issuing her debut album Nerve Up in February 2010.
----------------live:
In 2010 LoneLady toured europe in April/May and again later that year in September. They have been the UK tour support for Wire and These New Puritans.
They played a number of festivals including Pukkelpop, Green Man, Latitude, Big Chill and Camden Crawl.
