Holly Lerski

"Lerski’s powerful melodic sensibility and perceptive lyrics beautifully embellished by the album’s masterstroke, SistaStrings finely polished by the audio alchemy." - RnR Mag 4****  

“Lerski’s band Angelou were Uncut favourites. 'Sweet Decline'was written on a road trip around California & songs like 'Carmel' & 'Yosemite' are canyon rock beauties & the arrangements by Sista Strings are gorgeous. A long way from Norfolk origins but it sounds like Holly has landed exactly where she wants to be.” - Uncut Magazine

"She uses her soft and lilting voice to convey exactly what she’s trying to put across on an album of bittersweet stirrings...a delightfully fresh-sounding album about what it felt like to be on the path to self-renewal and self-rediscovery."
- RAMzine 4****

"I was discovering different elements with every listen to the album, and I must admit to some surprise that I was noticing little lyrical snatches on the fourth and fifth and sixth play throughs. It is a delightful album, made all the better because it has a personal touch."
- Music-News.com 4****

“A cool adventure through California. Charming ukulele-driven 'Carmel' was written on the beach & all have a laid-back-sun dappled air. Not unlike Canadian The Great Lake Swimmers yet with a feel all its own.” - Record Collector Magazine

“Each single showcases Holly’s distinctive sound & story telling prowess. Accompanied by captivating visuals & praised by critics these singles have set the stage for 'Sweet Decline'." - Maverick Magazine

"Glorious and gorgeous, it’s a keeper of an album and an early contender for best of 2024." - Amplify Music Magazine (US)

'Sweet Decline' in Best New Country and Americana Albums for week of April 26, 2024, American Songwriter

"Holly breaks our hearts with the aftermath of a breakup, when we’re out there and realize we’re on our own, again." - Americana Highways

"An upbeat work of infectious folk-pop that finds Lerski showcasing her ability to craft thoughtful songs with earworm melodies and choruses."- Glide Magazine (US)

“Her vocals are beguiling and beautiful, with music that weaves among indie pop, Americana, and folk. The results are charming and touching." - Vents Magazine (US)

"Holly Lerski shares her healing journey after heartbreak on the emotional 'Sweet Decline'... gorgeous…" - Skope Magazine (US)

“This record combines Holly’s distinctive sound with pop elements.” - Diva Magazine  

“‘Girl In A High Castle’ both tops and tails this lovely, honest collection of songs. This really is a lovely album.” - Americana-UK

"These are well-considered, finely crafted songs and the restorative properties of the places she visited shine through in Holly’s voice, every minute of the album."
- At The Barrier

"'Tall Trees' is elemental in both metaphorical and literal ways... 'Oh Cassy Run' is bouncy in the ways older Joni Mitchell songs used to be."
- Off-Centre Views (US)

"A classy showcase of Holly’s vocal talents as a formidable artist. Also for Holly as an accomplished craftswoman on the song writing side of things.  No decline here, folks…” - MusicRepublic.com 

“She has a bucket of songs & they’re good & she delivers them like a singer should. This is solid stuff, check it out."- theaudiophileman.com  

“Lerski keeps the arrangements light throughout the album and uses the music to illustrate her stories. It came as no surprise to find there is a book to accompany this album, so the feeling that this is a soundtrack is entirely right."  - Fatea 

"A testament to her resilience, born from a road trip across America’s West Coast...fuses the raw authenticity of folk storytelling with an astute pop sensibility."- The Strange Brew

"‘Sweet Decline’ is something of a guilty pleasure on a cold winter’s night. Just like a good book, it demands you immerse yourself in it, & come out the other end embracing life with a smile."- Get Ready To Rock 4/5**** 

No.1 in the GRTR chart, week commencing 10th March.

BIOGRAPHY

In 2019, reeling from the pain of a long-term breakup, British alt-Americana troubadour Holly Lerski hit the road and the creative muse struck. Written in two “suites,” her fifth studio album, Sweet Decline, was born of that travel. Lerski embarked on a whirlwind solo road trip with a miniature guitar across seven U.S. states in 20 days, during which she wrote the first seven songs in quick succession. Two months later, she returned, this time wandering the Southern Californian desert and coast, where she penned the next three. Her last song, "Girl In A High Castle," was written in a shepherd’s hut in Dorset just before leaving England.

“I went off to find America and found myself in this incredible landscape I'd only ever dreamed of: mountains, deserts, redwood forests, the wild Pacific Ocean,” says Lerski. “And I met all these amazing people along the way, experienced random acts of kindness time and time again. The more I opened up to life, the more the lucky breaks came.” Posting live updates via social media, befriending strangers, visiting radio stations, and writing songs along the way, it was as if a valve inside had broken open and life came pouring back in; instead of feeling isolated in a foreign country, Lerski started finding connections everywhere. “And all these songs appeared" she says.

Lerski grew up outside London in the ’70s, inspired by the music her father, who was a sound engineer for TV/film, brought home. She got her first instrument at just four years old — a child’s tin drum kit— and at five, her first guitar. By eight, she was playing from a Beatles songbook and cutting Led Zeppelin licks in the schoolyard with her first band by 12. She spent her teens exploring punk and prog-rock, then joined psychedelic indie pop act The Nivens as bassist. Two years later, while studying painting at the Norwich School of Art, Lerski came out as a lesbian — a defining moment that helped shift her focus back to art, self-discovery, and beauty again.

She returned to making music in 1996 and formed a new band, Angelou, drawing influence from both the poet and musician, Jeff Buckley (who passed away the week of the EP’s release). A cover of Buckley’s version of “Hallelujah” became Angelou’s first demo. The band signed to UK indie label Haven Records in 1997 and dropped a debut album, Automiracles (produced by Calum MacColl and described as “achingly lovely” by Mojo Magazine), in 1998. In 2000, Lerski self-produced Angelou’s second, “quietly brilliant folk-pop” album, While You Were Sleeping, then signed to Spanish label El Diablo Records in 2001, dropping two new singles, a best-of album titled Midnight Witcheries, and embarking on two national tours. That same year she signed with UK label Sanctuary Records and released Best of Angelou: Sweet Dreams Tonight, joining John Hiatt and the Goners on their European tour. Angelou’s third full-length album, Life is Beautiful, came out in 2002 under Lerski’s name, earning national airplay on BBC Radio 2 and spots touring in support of major international acts Josh Rouse, The Cranberries, and Jason Mraz. The band broke up in 2007, and Lerski played a final solo gig at The Living Room in NYC before taking a hiatus.

In 2015 she dropped her fourth album, written and recorded at home in her garden shed. Titled The Wooden House, the collection of “delicately interwoven guitars” was named one of the best folk albums of 2015 by both The Sunday Telegraph and Independent on Sunday.

As a songwriter, Lerski is both a lone wolf howling at the moon and a weaver of life’s synchronistic little odd threads, akin to artists like Tori Amos and Patti Smith in her fierce pursuit of her own, wild path. She draws personal inspiration from wanderers and other traveling truth-bearers like Jack Kerouac and Bob Dylan, blending poetic insights with rich sensory detail in pure, down-to-earth verse.

“When someone hears and responds to my music, it’s like a boomerang, or a friendly echo,” she says. “Something you send out that comes back to you, a little changed. That’s why I do this.”

It’s about examining the complicated fodder of life in search of genuine connection. Sweet Decline — from the initial sketches with James “Hutch” Hutchinson, Tony Braunagel, Johnny Lee Schell, and Diego “El Twanguero” Garcia in LA, to the finished works with Matt Roley, SistaStrings, Josh Hunt and Alex McCollough in Nashville — is the musical culmination of that hard-won lesson. Together, the album’s elegant, alt-country anthems form a rare breed of intimate outsider ballad, charting the miraculous ways we learn to heal after being ripped apart. It’s both a catalog of Lerski’s own raw pain and a reflection on the precious, mysterious connections that led her down a path of true change. Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is become vulnerable again.