Lazuli Vane

Lazuli Vane is a moniker adopted by Trash Panda founder and frontman Patrick Taylor in 2018. A name which plays on both the vanity and changeability (think “weather vane') of self-reflective identity and the deep, mind opening blue hues of a Lapis Lazuli stone, it's choice was inspired by the main character in George MacDonald's 1895 novel “Lilith.” Primarily inspired by a near death experience during a traumatic brain infection and subsequent coma and surgery at the age of 20, Vane began an inner search for the ground floor of reality, simultaneously navigating all the normal day to day problems of a penniless millennial kid in a hyper-capitalist society dead-set on self aggrandizement and instant gratification. He experimented with ascetic austerities, various forms of meditation, Jungian active imagination, psychedelic explorations, various religious studies, and ultimately came to leave all of those paths behind for the simplicity of “real life.” From these struggles have come both songs and lessons, and the externalization of the soul into art is part of the healing process. Lazuli Vane's music reflects this: it's a project of dichotomies: head-knocking groove collides with true “lethereality” in a psychonautic soundscape, all hung upon pop song forms and sewn together with a lilting, almost jazzy voice. Lyrically the songs tend to lend themselves to the symbolic and archetypal. Melodically playful, the feelings conjured by Vane's songs range from hopeful and wonder-inducing to tragic and borderline nihilistic, though there are also songs which reflect a self-empowering and self-loving attitude and sense of humor. Throughout there seems to be an invisible force pulling the writer back up when all seems lost. To Lazuli, this is the kernel of the spiritual mind, which underpins everything he thinks, and has since that fateful 20th birthday when everything went black. Lazuli Vane's first LP is scheduled for release early in 2019.

Lazuli Vane resides in Atlanta, GA. Though most of his work is recorded at home, Vane enlisted the help of Aaron and Nancy Hill at the Greenhouse Atlanta for engineering drums and for parts of the final mixing process. Drums were played by both Paul Wagner and Lazuli, and bass duties were shared with Max Hewett (of Trash Panda) who features on several songs with rollicking, thumping bass.