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Hear Lady Lazarus’ Beautiful ‘Wonder, Inc’

Lady Lazarus' Melissa Ann Sweat

Lady Lazarus lives: The character made famous by Sylvia Plath’s poem is also the nom de plume of Georgia’s Melissa Ann Sweat. Originally based in San Jose, Sweat has been delicately crafting dirges reminiscent of the evocative, female vocal-driven atmospherics Grouper. Despite fears that “cold and clinical” studio production would compromise the raw immediacy of her work — which led to a return to her Fostex four-track for last year’s Mantic — new material like “Wonder, Inc” off her forthcoming sophomore effort, All My Love In Half Light (out January 29), clarifies her voice and deepens her piano lines to even more soul-stirring effect. Breathy and hopeful, Sweat sounds childlike as her voice clambers up the steep, circular octaves to sing, “I wonder / How it will all work out?”