Empress Of (aka Lorely Rodriquez) announces the release of her debut album, ‘Me’, released on Terrible Records.

Produced, recorded and engineered entirely by Lorely over the course of 2014, the ten-track album plays out like diary entries; musing on the personal, the political and everything that falls inbetween.

The roots of ‘Me’ start in an empty practice space in Brooklyn, where Lorely spent many nights dancing alone next to a little spinning silver disco ball. “After touring the EP, I realized I wanted to make music that was fun to perform live,” she says. But ultimately the city put her in a less-than-inspired headspace. Her intuitive search for a more introspective and isolated writing experience led her to unexpectedly life-changing and mind-bending solo trip to Valle de Bravo, Mexico. The isolation sent her deep inside her head, to pull out everything she wanted to pour into ‘Me’. “Every lyric on the record, I could tell you exactly what I was doing when I wrote it,” Lorely explains, “I wanted to write songs that gave me this feeling of reliving moments in my life.”

Lorely’s lyrics are more introspective; songs of broken relationships and new ones starting and ultimately self-reliance: “I just need myself, need myself, to love myself, to love myself.”

If clarity is what she seeks, Lorely has found it in ‘Me’: her voice upfront, every word audible and strong. Her singular voice is the centrepiece of ‘Me’, her first full-formed vision of an album, following her previously shorter and more abstract releases as Empress Of (2012’s ‘Colorminutes’ and 2013’s ‘Systems’ EP).

In support of ‘Me’, Empress Of recently played a three night residency at London’s Power Lunches. This short run of shows was inspired by a similar week of shows in NYC – her five night residency at Elvis Guesthouse saw her joined by a unique mix of musicians including Ezra Koenig, Dev Hynes and Terrible Records label mate Le1f. She’ll also be heading out on the road in the Autumn with Purity Ring, playing a full run of shows across the UK and Europe.