Julie Campbell, who operates as LoneLady, hails from Manchester. You can certainly hear it in her music, which references the northern post-punk sound that birthed a Certain Ratio and Joy Division. Yet Lonelady’s second album Hinterland is far more than just a retread of her home city’s past.
Campbell refuses to deal simply in facsimile, though – rather, she uses these reference points knowingly to tell a sonic story about her home city’s post-industrial landscape and mindset.
She also experiments, letting these grey-skied influences coalesce with more vibrant sounds, such as on the soulful 80s dance-pop of Groove It Out. The title track is an especially astonishing creation, constructed out of striking cello, scratchy funk riffs and a solo in which Campbell somehow wrangles melody from a seemingly random collection of thrashed-out notes. It proves Campbell is that rare artist: one not just with a singular vision, but also the technical ability to realise it.
