From the between the rivers of New York City to the lakes of Madison, a native daughter is bringing her music home Thursday.
Akin to both watery locales, Alice and the Glass Lake’s dream pop floats ambiently through lush sensory overtones. Synthy sounds trickle into shimmering vocal cascades like sunlight glinting off of a lake.
Circle of Heat, O’Fosho,
Alice and the Glass Lake,
Comic Books
Thursday, August 22, 2013
The Frequency
9 PM; $5
The frontwoman, and part of the band’s namesake, grew up in Madison as Alicia Lemke. Active in community theater as a child, she also played saxaphone in high school and college. Then a switched flipped, and she realized that playing original music was worth diving into.
“It just never occurred to me to start writing until the very moment that I did — then things really began,” she says. Professionally, Lemke goes by the name Alice Lake.
After a brief stint studying songwriting at Berklee College of Music, Lake relocated to New York City. Alice and the Glass Lake’s The Evolution EP was released two years later in May 2013. The five-track album, recorded in bedrooms and home studios in Brooklyn, is garnering enthusiastic nods from tastemakers coast to coast. The band has opened for Fleetwood Mac and Florence + the Machine, as well as performing in a coveted spot on a new music stage at Bonnaroo 2013.
Back to America’s Dairyland. The other half of the band’s namesake, the Glass Lake, is located on an upstate retreat owned by Glass’s family. Lake credits the hideaway as a creative space that lends to her ethereal sound. The former biology undergrad names nature as her greatest influence.
“Nothing inspires me as much as how I feel in the wilderness or when confronted with a place I’ve never seen,” Lake says. She aims for the same multi-sensory experience in songwriting. “I care as much about painting a picture and creating a feeling as I do about telling a story.”
Blending the personal with the natural, Alice and the Glass Lake’s lyrics evoke feelings of great heights and wide open spaces, as well as comforting places like the lake in question.
Lake is bringing the band’s rich sound back to Madison in a rare, stripped-down duo format at The Frequency Thursday.
“I’d liken it to the experience of moving away, meeting someone really important that changes your life, and then getting to bring them back home to meet mom for the first time,” she said.