Jessica Lea Mayfield

Pop Matters

By: Caroline Shadood

Everything about singer-songwriter Jessica Lea Mayfield is both incredibly practiced yet incredibly sincere—a binary that becomes only more compelling in consideration of her 1989 birthday. view article

Babel Music

By: Joe Puglisi

In a dreary sea of songwriters, her writing encapsulates that special certain emotive quality that is tough to find and even tougher to put into words. read interview

Athens Soundies

Produced by: Jason Miller/Ethan Payne

During a recent stop in Athens, GA, Jessica met up with the guys at Athens Soundies, who describe their site as “a series of one take, low-fi, live sound music videos.” We think they do a cool job. Check out Jessica’s intimate, acoustic performances of “Kiss Me Again” and “Grown Man.” watch videos

Austin 360.com

By: Briant T. Atkinson

Jessica Lea Mayfield’s starkly confessional With Blasphemy So Heartfelt shades blossoming romance with deep shadows. Key element: the 19-year-old’s desert sunset voice. Accordingly, Mayfield’s emotive debut, a moody folk-pop collection both ambient and ambitious, has thrived as a television soundtrack. view Q & A

The Seattle Times

Most gothic at No Depression Festival: Jessica Lea Mayfield

By: Andrew Matson

Jessica Lea Mayfield is a legitimate Queen of Darkness.  view article

The New York Times

By: Ben Ratliff

Her country-rock is wary and passive and trancelike, and kind of way out. The songs document love relationships from a vantage point so abstracted that it might be a space satellite. Growing up in a family bluegrass band in Kent, Ohio, she made her first record at 15, perfecting the sound of withdrawn emotion. She’s in a special position for someone so young, and she hasn’t gotten there by giggling. view article

USA Today: Pop Candy

By: Whitney Matheson

I saw Jessica Lea Mayfield, who put on a mesmerizing, heartfelt show with her band. I melted during “Kiss Me Again” and got quite excited when she brought out the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach for the last couple songs. (He produced her stellar debut.) She’s still on tour, so see her if you can. view article

Esquire

11 Saddest Songs in Music History

Esquire magazine recently named Jessica’s cover of Buddy Holly’s “Words of Love” one of their “11 Saddest Cover Songs in Music History.” view article

NPR – Mountain Stage

With a stark, haunting voice and swirling layers of guitar, Mayfield performs six songs from With Blasphemy, with her brother David on bass, Anne Lillis on drums and Richie Kirkpatrick on guitar. view article / listen to session

Daytrotter Session

By: Johnnie Cluney

Words by: Sean Moeller

Mayfield has such skill in her songwriting craft at such a frighteningly young age that it’s all the more remarkable – the pace and the voice and the tone of her words, like a forest whispering throughout the night – that she already can make unforgettable music seem so easy. view article / listen to session

Blurt

By: The Blurt Editors

And as we lived with the album, the realization grew that we were witnessing the flowering of a major artist; so much so, that in addition to picking With Blasphemy So Heartfelt our top album of 2008, Mayfield must surely be our Best New Artist, too. That’s our own imprimatur, certainly, but when you consider some of the musicians she edged out – among them, Lykke Li, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes and She & Him – it’s nothing less than an article of faith, too. view article

Pitchfork

Review of With Blasphemy So Heartfelt

Jessica Lea Mayfield sings with a drawl that goes slightly flat when she sustains notes and gives certain words the semblance of regional color. It could be a personal characteristic of her downcast voice, or perhaps a nod to her Rust Belt upbringing, but the 19-year-old singer/songwriter, who recorded her 2007 debut under the name Chittlin’, sounds immediately distinctive and poised on “Kiss Me Again”, the opening track on her second album, With Blasphemy So Heartfelt, calling to mind but ultimately surpassing comparisons to Hope Sandoval or Syd Straw. “You can kiss me again if you want, I don’t mind,” she sings, yet she sounds actively invested in her romantic passivity– a fascinating and endlessly listenable contradiction. continue reading