LoneLady

Julie Campbell, known as LoneLady, is a music artist from Manchester, England, influenced by the post-punk era, but later integrating dance and funk influences. She first started making music on a 4-track cassette recorder in her towerblock flat in Manchester while completing a Fine Art degree. Her stark, early first gigs featured Campbell alone playing electric guitar along to a drum machine. She would later have a 4-piece live band, however. Campbell came to the attention of Warp who signed her in 2009. Her first album, Nerve Up, was released in 2010 to widespread critical acclaim. NME called it 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"; it also drew praise from music journalist Paul Morley. Campbell's music is characterised by a lo-fi, economical approach; she has said that "Working with basic tools, mainly an 8-track cassette recorder, a telecaster and a drum machine forced me to be economical and inventive, and set an aesthetic blueprint for the way I like to work, to keep things stark and urgent." Inspired by psychogeography, with dance and funk influences coming to the fore, Campbell's second album Hinterland was released in 2015, also to widespread critical acclaim. The Quietus called it a "vibrant and urgent combination of genealogy and vision – and it is this that truly makes it a masterpiece." All four singles released from Hinterland reached the 'A' Playlist on BBC 6 Music; Campbell also received a Sky Arts nomination for Best Breakthrough Artist.