The first two single releases from Lulu Schmidt’s album: "Happy And I Hate It", and "Fire", are already on continuous rotation on the Austrian radio station FM4. The newcomer artist is also enjoying rotation in the UK, Lithuania, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Slovenia. "Fire" made it straight to Spotify ́s New Music Friday in Germany and Switzerland.

Lulu Schmidt, who describes her music as “hangover pop”, has been described as one of the most exciting contemporary Austrian artists. However, she is a constructed personality. The person behind the figure is Carola Schmidt.

After growing up in the Catholic Waldviertel region, she moved to Berlin to study art, gained international stage experience with the electro group Tangowerk, and finally returned to Vienna 2 years ago to finish her debut album. She loves to play with roles, break them, and bring them to the stage as a "one woman show"; with a mixture of performance art, casual music, and a lot of talent. In her frequent public appearances, she plays every instrument herself. She is known for her shrill conceptual stagings, which focus on the themes of transformation and identity.

"It happens to me automatically, that I turn things upside down when I deal with them. I am happiest within the tension of a border zone. It's not on purpose, it simply just happens.”

“The current beauty ideals of the music business, and the ‘star moment’ concept of the pop industry, fascinates me; how music videos have to look, and how the singers present themselves in them. I can't seriously use this format without thematizing the format itself.

“I like the destroyed, the broken, the vulnerable; as well as the great gestures, the bombastically huge. Musically, as well as performatively, it is the transformation processes which fascinate me. For example, to pass from a meditative calm into explosive energy; to transform sadness into strength. I move between these poles, and experimenting in this field of tension is for me the most exciting. This also applies to staging.

“As a woman, one is easily labelled as a “pop-chickl”, if one enjoys dressing up, and exaggeration. The joy in self-expression is often quickly and readily equated with vanity. Almost inevitably, one must resort to irony in order to be taken seriously.

“I want to show distortions of beauty, but also celebrate the beauty of distortion."
(Lulu Schmidt)

In the sensationally funny and scurrilous video for Fire (director: Rupert Höller), she lives out the joy of the eccentric. Body image, gender, and the “star cult” are deconstructed in an amusing way.

Video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JprO6HlLm1w

She can be seen live at Popfest Vienna, and at the end of October, at her album release concert at the FM4 Club, during the Viennale at the Museumsquartier Wien.

The album was supported by the Österreichischen Musikfonds.

More info & pre-listening link to the album: www.bit.ly/luluschmidt_en


Press quotes:
“The multi-instrumentalist and singer has written one of the Indie hits of 2019 for me.” (...) (FM4 Soundpark)

“Happy and She Hates It”: from inner conflict Lulu Schmidt has created bleak-beautiful Trip-Hop, which also has Pop elements.” (Ticket magazine)

“It’s quite cool what this lady does: on the one hand, very influenced by Electro; on the other, with strong refrains and melodies, somehow with a lot of New Wave in it … we are already won over as fans. File under: Electro-Wave with a strong frontwoman” (DOT Magazine)

"The eleven songs on her album are magically produced, with a strong voice and exciting instrumentalisation. The genres mentioned on the website: BiPop, Hybrid-Pop, Avant-Pop, Glamtrap, and Hiphop/Rap. In truth, Lulu Schmidt is first and foremost, Lulu Schmidt.(...), currently one of the most exciting artists in the country." (Haubentaucher)

“More courage to shrill figures - when you must kiss the devil’s hand, even while he is oppressing you: Lulu Schmidt dedicates her album to exciting contrasts. “The game” means for her, above all, one thing: to create breaks, to make ironic. In the video "Fire", she poses with the same pop aesthetics with which today’s women gladly perform, only with bushy black hair showing showing in her cleavage.” (Die Presse)

“The woman from the Waldviertel, Lulu Schmidt, can confidently be called a cultural multi-talent. Fashion, dance, film, visual arts, and music; all have equal value and status within the great cosmos of the performance artist. On her long-awaited debut album "BiPopularity", she elegantly mixes avant-garde pop with electronica, and mainstream pop with rap, without stumbling between these great divides. The result is modern Pop 3.0 with a lot of humor and message, and light-footed when it comes to clichés and traditionalism". (Krone Music)