Erica Wexler
Erica Wexler has lived a life that’s full and always done it her own way. And she has poured this into her debut album, Sunlit Night- released March 18th, 2013 on Folly Music. The album is executively produced by Erica’s partner- Andy Partridge of XTC and mixed by Andy Bradfield (Rufus Wainwright, Elbow, David Gray).
Sunlit Night is the kind of grand and detailed record that no one is making anymore. It is an album of lush melodies with ethereal orchestrated pop arrangements. Sung by Erica and played by musicians with no electronics, there is a narrative depth, vocal purity and emotional resonance that makes few if any concessions to contemporary trends.
Just as the tracks are classically structured with an orchestral flare, they also deal with classic themes. The gorgeous, ‘Wildflowers’ is about falling for an inappropriate person, whilst ‘My Silent Star’ is about making peace with separation and loss'.
On ‘I Unbecome’, Wexler sings a song about how you can be 'half a person' without your partner (which takes on an emotional new resonance when one understands it was actually written by Andy Partridge about how he feels when Erica isn’t around).
If Sunlit Night has a leitmotif, it is the interconnectedness of people and the circular nature of love - as the title of the arresting and compelling closing track has it, ‘Love Goes Round’.
"This album saved me from a life rotting away, a life without meaning or hope," Wexler reveals, talking about her decade-long struggle with ME. "I tried to make an album of sonic beauty that people can bathe in, that envelops them and says everything will be ok."
Erica was brought up in New York but moved to the UK where she has been living with her supportive partner Andy Partridge - of 17 years (from the band XTC).
Her father was Oscar nominated screenwriter Norman Wexler (Saturday Night Fever, Serpico). A brilliant man with an IQ of 180.
Her mother, meanwhile, was an award winning advertising executive and copywriter who remarried, when Erica was 10, an award-winning art director called Robert Wilvers who achieved fame for his advertising campaigns for Alka Seltzer ('Plop-plop-fizz-fizz') and Citibank ('The city that never sleeps').
Erica was girlfriend to pop artist Roy Lichtenstein for two and a half years. She was the inspiration for introducing nudes into Lichtenstein’s work. Sunlit Night was funded by the sale of some Lichtenstein drawings given to her by the artist. She still has an interesting collection of unique mementos from this period.
In 1993, Erica self-released a dance track under the name Lluna which went down a storm with the club and gay audiences,. Called 'Shameless'- it was executively produced by Roy Lichtenstein and was an alternative dance hit that got her signed to Warner Bros.