Julie Campbell: Women Make Music
The landscape of Manchester has been a big influence on my music. I live in a city-centre towerblock and I want to explore how this affects the psyche, and permeates sonically into making music. I want to pick up on themes initiated in my first record and develop my interest in Psychogeography.
There are many other Psycho-geographic artists who use the city as the medium for their work, including the electronic musician John Foxx, author of dystopian landscapes JG Ballard and creator of lyrical memoir ‘The Poetics Of Space’, Gaston Bachelard. While taking cues from other such ‘explorers’ I wish to carry out my own personal investigations of the city as physical and internal environment. Psychogeography underpins my musical ideas and informs the lyrics.
Musically speaking, I will explore elements I feel are borne out of and reflect the tensions and colours of city living, such as groove rhythms and r’n’b textures. I will develop longer pieces of music without losing the economic, minimal aesthetic often remarked on in my music.
My influences are funk, r’n’b/hip-hop and dance. These genres often show how the city, urban life and community can be used and understood as a medium for expression by diverse cultures. In my case as expressed through the lens – or guitar – of a white female Mancunian.
This fusion of Psychogeography and urban music influences will I believe provide fresh perspectives on these areas and an alternative to prevailing templates in mainstream pop/rock music about what a female artist ‘ought’ to be.
I want the outcome to be a kind of thrilling labyrinth that the listener is compelled to enter.
About Lone Lady / Jule Campbell
Julie Campbell was born in Ashton, grew up in Audenshaw and lives in the city centre of Manchester. Campbell gained a Fine Art degree from Manchester Metropolitan University, and after graduating exhibited artwork and was published nationally in poetry magazines.
She began making economical, scratchy, four-track recordings with guitar and a drum machine in 2005. Small local label ‘Filthy Home Recordings’ released two singles and an EP. These early recordings were well received locally and nationally, and won her a place in the Anthony Wilson-hosted Showcase at 2006’s world-famous South by Southwest Festival in Texas. In 2007 LoneLady inaugurated Too Pure’s Singles Club with a 7”, her first proper studio recording.
LoneLady signed to Warp records in 2009 and released two singles, before her debut album ‘Nerve Up’ was released to wide critical acclaim in February 2010.