Jessy Lanza
A Hamilton, Ontario electronic songwriter and producer on Hyperdub, whose Oh No (2016) holds the single "It Means I Love You".
Hamilton to Hyperdub
Jessy Lanza was born on September 3, 1985 in Hamilton, Ontario, and plays vocals, drum machine, keyboards and synthesizer. She grew up playing piano and clarinet and studied classical and jazz piano at Concordia University in Montreal; she credits the jazz study with the ability to hear and lift chord progressions. Her father ran a speaker-rental business, which put synthesizers and drum machines in front of her early, and she worked as a music teacher and met Dan Snaith of Caribou in Hamilton. Her influences include Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul, Missy Elliott and Timbaland, Evelyn Champagne King, Melba Moore and the members of Yellow Magic Orchestra; her voice has been compared to Elizabeth Fraser and Aaliyah.
Her debut, Pull My Hair Back (2013, Hyperdub), was co-written and co-produced with Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys, shortlisted for the 2014 Polaris Music Prize and ranked fourth on Resident Advisor's top albums of 2013. In 2014 she worked on Caribou's Our Love, in 2015 sang on The Galleria's Calling Card and released the EP You Never Show Your Love, with DJ Spinn and Taso from the Teklife footwork crew. Oh No followed in 2016, then All the Time (2020), the mix DJ-Kicks: Jessy Lanza (2021), Love Hallucination (2023) and the EP Slapped By My Life (2025).
Oh No
Oh No was released on May 13, 2016 on Hyperdub (HDBCD030), produced by Lanza and Greenspan, 40:50, all ten tracks written by the two. She made it while feeling down, she told Kaltblut, and wanted it to be the opposite of how she felt, using the same process as the debut, experimenting with ways to write pop songs with Greenspan, who understands where I'm coming from and what I want to do. The cover is a still from the video for "It Means I Love You", and she says it doesn't look like me on the front which suits the overall mood of the whole album. It reached 14 on the US dance albums chart.
Metacritic scored it 82; Pitchfork gave 7.9, the Guardian and NME four stars, Mixmag 9 out of 10, Spin and Uncut 8, Exclaim! 9 and AllMusic 4.5 stars. Gorilla vs. Bear and The Quietus placed it second and fourth among the albums of 2016, and it was shortlisted for the 2016 Polaris Prize. Setlist.fm lists 175 sets, 118 of them in 2016.
Albums
Songs
- It Means I Love You Oh No · 2016
The lead single from Oh No, a slow burn at speedy tempo built around a drum beat.
Sources
- Jessy Lanza, Wikipedia
- Oh No (Jessy Lanza album), Wikipedia
- Jessy Lanza, Hyperdub
- An interview with Jessy Lanza, Kaltblut