LIZ LAMERE SHARES KING CITY GHOST FROM NEW ALBUM ONE NEVER KNOWS
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“INFINITE DREAMS – THE LIFE OF ALAN VEGA” BIOGRAPHY CO-WRITTEN BY LIZ LAMERE & LAURA DAVIS-CHANIN OUT JUNE 18 VIA BACKBEAT BOOKS
Photo: Jasmine Hirst
"Alan Vega is King City Ghost. This song opens the album, sets the tone and touches on themes explored throughout One Never Knows. It references a prophetic encounter Vega had with a street person in the early 70s east village who declared to Alan “I am the King of the Bums and when I die you will be the King of the Bums”. Alan took that to heart as a tireless warrior for the oppressed. And he knew his creative vision would be further understood after he left this realm: “you said they’d know one day what you came to say”. While One Never Knows expresses my distinct voice and perspective, it also carries Vega’s message forward as we continue to build on his legacy. The video by Jasmine Hirst includes vintage footage of NYC and Vega's classic portrait drawings circa his encounter with the King of the Bums." Liz Lamere
Five years after her partner and studio collaborator of three decades Alan Vega passed away in 2016, Liz Lamere felt ready to launch the solo career he’d actively encouraged, at the same time continuing to syphon unheard nuggets from the Vega Vault she curates with the Vacant Lots’ Jared Artaud.
If 2021’s barnstorming solo debut Keep It Alive marked Lamere’s first giant step, its sparkling, startling follow-up One Never Knows is the consummation, displaying the tangible progression of her creative journey, in confidence, songwriting and performances.
Keeping it in the family, the new album was engineered like its predecessor by son Dante at the Dujang Prang home studio which was formerly the room where Vega constructed his awesome sculptures, some still lighting up the walls. If Keep It Alive was charged with catharsis, defiance and deftly brandished aggression (and covid lockdown energy), One Never Knows casts Liz’s unstoppable positive spirit with a wider net, remaining genre-less as it delights in showing the debut was no one-off.
Sounding comfortable in its animated skin, her voice is to the fore over opening track ‘King City Ghost’’s torrential sheets of electro pulsing sound countered by twanging riffs. Contrastingly, Liz assumes a ghostly tone for ‘Strike’, its electro motif goaded by snarling guitar. Starting out playing drums in a punk band before working with Vega from 1990 prepared Liz for the ensuing decades of developments in electronic music; ‘Vibration’ conjures a distinct 80s feel with its elastic synth-led electro groove laced with glacial textures, austere drama and mutant orchestration, its dense sashay invaded by mid-song disco drop.
The tempo eases to a slow grind on ‘Mind’, her semi-spoken vocals dealing with memories beautifully complimented by its mosaic-like backdrop. Darkly hued and speedy of tempo, ‘Moment’ is steered by its metallic cruising rhythm train offset by blurry pulses as Liz comments on life; the overall effect of this album highlight is delirious abandon. The evocatively compelling ‘If Only’ sets up a darkly dystopian mood through dirty clanking bass, drifting synth shards and visceral counter melodies, effective higher register vocal harmonies enhancing her plea of “Don’t destroy the dream tonight”.
Finally, ‘No Regrets’ slows to vivid tapestries of electronic ectoplasm that becomes a mantra, counter vocals and New York light twinkles countering its block chord wodges. Like her work with Alan, the sound may veer towards the unsettlingly dense but optimism beams from its core, in this case through the clear new voice that enters from the rafters.
As Liz says, “Writing and recording my own music, again with Dante as engineer in our Dujang Prang studio where Alan made his sculptures, has been an amazing journey. This latest album truly feels like an evolution for me.”
Her departed but ever-present soulmate would be proud, especially as One Never Knows comes hot on the ferocious heels of Insurrection, her and Jared Artaud’s latest excavation from the Vega Vault, both preceding Alan’s forthcoming biography.
“I’d long dreamed of making my own records but waited until the time was right as I have been dedicated to preserving Alan’s vision,” says Liz. “Now it’s my time to turn up the burner to fully honor Alan by seeing my vision through. In my heart, I know how happy Alan would be, and also because my personality comes through. I learned so much working with him, including principles such as minimalism that were really important to him. Music is movement and placement of sound. Whether it was the sounds or vocals we were creating, they were driven purely by feel in the moment and that’s a very freeing thing. Believing there are no mistakes – that’s where the magic happens.”
Keep It Alive and One Never Knows course with the defiant energy that motivated Liz Lamere through her early double life as both high-end Wall Street lawyer and downtown New York punk before meeting and falling in love with Vega led to her becoming his manager, creative foil and keyboard manipulator on solo albums beginning in 1990, including Deuce Avenue, Power On To Zero Hour, New Raceion, Dujang Prang, 2007, Station and IT, followed by 2021’s Mutator opening the Vega Vault she curates with Jared Artaud.
After Vega passed away in July 2016, Liz adopted his habit of writing down thoughts and observations in notebooks. Simultaneously, she and Jared started collaborating, overseeing the mastering of IT, co-producing Mutator and working together on her first solo album. Meanwhile, after son Dante started studying sound engineering in 2017, he took to producing young hip-hop acts at the studio built in Alan’s former workspace.
“When we were recording together, Alan often said ‘You should do your own album,’” explains Liz. “Then suddenly, when Dante and I were home alone during the height of Covid I had a captive engineer! So I asked him to help me execute my vision. I wrote and performed all the lyrics and music, and he was awesome capturing it all so seamlessly. It felt so right because we set up a recording studio in Alan’s space where he created his sculptures. When he was little, Dante would help him, like an assistant. There’s something very magical about that space and its energy inevitably impacts on our recording.”
When the tracks were recorded, the final step was, “Jared working on the mixing and arrangements with me remotely…He was amazed how formed it already was and we were able to very fluidly complete it together!”
Running concurrent with her musical activities, Liz has been hyperactively involved in the boxing world for nearly 20 years, including competitive sparring, managing professional boxers, and getting the nod from the NYS Athletic Commission to make a run at being licensed for her pro-boxing debut. Realizing that her impact would be more powerful (and taking what she felt would be more risk), she pivoted to the challenge of making solo records. When Liz sent the tracks to long-time supporter Henry Rollins, he was so impressed he asked if he could share the album with Larry Hardy at LA’s In The Red imprint, which will be releasing One Never Knows on June 14. Kris Needs, May 2024.
Additionally, Liz co-wrote with Laura Davis-Chanin the first ever definitive Alan Vega biography entitled Infinite Dreams – The Life of Alan Vega, with a foreword by Bruce Springsteen, which will be published June 18 on Backbeat Books. Liz and Dante Vega Lamere will be at the book release, reading and signing as part of the Suicide tribute, Sally Can’t Dance / Suicide Sally at Bowery Electric in New York City on June 20.
Artwork: Jasmine Hirst /
ONE NEVER KNOWS track list:
KING CITY GHOST
STRIKE
VIBRATION
MIND
MOMENT
IF ONLY
NO REGRETS
STRIKE
VIBRATION
MIND
MOMENT
IF ONLY
NO REGRETS
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