![\"Lady](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/web-AllMyLoveInHalfLight_albumcover_LadyLazarus.jpg\")
<\/a>Now located in Los Angeles, Sweat hails from San Jose, Calif., yet has lived and traveled throughout the United States. Her style mirrors that of some of the great female vocalists and piano players, and she follows in the vein of an older era of music.<\/p>\n
Sweat calls her style \u201cdreamy and sensual,\u201d as well as \u201cslightly funky,\u201d and she mainly plays the piano and keyboard, creating a melodic background beat that allows her voice to take center stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say I\u2019m a keyboard-based singer and songwriter that fits into the same category as older Tom Waits and Regina Spektor, or old Stevie Nicks demos,\u201d Sweat said. \u201cIt\u2019s also a little more experimental but only slightly. There\u2019s some pop to it but it isn\u2019t bubblegum.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lady Lazarus got the first big break in 2011 with the release of her debut album \u201cMantic.\u201d This year, Sweat released a second album titled \u201cAll My Love In Half Light\u201d as Lady Lazarus. The band name is derived from a Sylvia Plath poem that has a personal meaning to Sweat.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love Sylvia Plath, the poet and author, and there was a poem that she wrote that referred to the Biblical Lazarus that rises from the dead,\u201d Sweat said. \u201cI like the idea of someone coming back from a hard time, so even though the poem is really dark I took it to be a more positive thing and I think it fits well with the type of music that I make. It\u2019s very dark in a way but has a positive message.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sweat got somewhat of a late start to her life as a musician after being inspired by her younger brother, who is in the band PaperCuts. She began teaching herself to play the keyboard in 2008 at the age of 25, and soon after was writing and recording her own songs while living in San Francisco.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have any musical background whatsoever and then just started teaching myself how to play the keyboard,\u201d Sweat said, calling herself a writer and artist while growing up.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I started getting into music it was really easy for me to come up with lyrics since I had written for so long, making poetry and short stories. Songs came together pretty fluently and I just tried to essentially make an art project of it and it grew from there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After a cross-country train trip, Sweat settled in Savannah, Ga. in 2010 and toured the East Coast to promote her self-released debut album.<\/p>\n
Last summer she played at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City and released new music as part of Graveface Records\u2019 Charity Release Series,\u00a0 with Mount Eerie, Xiu Xiu and Mike Watt, among others.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was actually a little bit of the producer in some respects because I had a clear idea of the sound that I was going for,\u201d she said of the new album, which she will highlight at the North Park show. \u201cI write everything and come up with the composition and the sound myself.\u201d<\/p>\n
While performing, Sweat said she will mainly play piano and keyboard, but occasionally she throws in some harmonica and other background instruments that she is currently learning to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy live shows are pretty intimate,\u201d Sweat said. \u201cFor me as a music fan, that\u2019s what I really like: when you feel like you can get a sense of who an artist is and see that they\u2019re a real person. \u2026 I am definitely a solo artist in the way that I really like having my own stance on what I\u2019m doing creatively. It fits well with who I am that I have full control over a project.\u201d<\/p>\n