With a pair of albums, Lucette carved out a niche between rustic Americana and spacy indie pop during the second half of the 2010s. Black Is the Color, her 2014 debut, unveiled a lively and clever songwriter steeped in earthy country-rock traditions, but Lucette took a sharp left turn with 2019's Sturgill Simpson-produced Deluxe Hotel Room, embracing electronics and trippy textures. Born Lauren Gillis in Edmonton, Alberta, Lucette learned piano as a child and began writing songs as a teenager, inspired equally by classic singer/songwriters, modern pop, jazz, and country music. Her songs soon got the attention of Dave Cobb, who flew her to Nashville to record her 2014 debut album Black Is the Color. By the time Rock Creek Music released the album, Gillis had adopted Lucette as her stage name. Simpson became a prominent supporter of Lucette, appearing in the video for her single "Bobby Reid" and enlisting the singer/songwriter as the opening act for his Metamodern Sounds in Country Music tour. In the wake of this tour, Lucette moved to Nashville. Her relationship with Simpson deepened when he produced Deluxe Hotel Room, the 2019 album that found Lucette abandoning Americana arrangements for evocative electronic-tinged arrangements. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine