Alicia Lemke (February 3, 1987 – August 9, 2015), known professionally as Alice and the Glass Lake, was an American singer.
Biography
Lemke was born in Madison, Wisconsin in 1987,[1][3] and attended West High School. She appeared in Children's Theatre of Madison productions numerous times.[1] She then attended Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and Berklee College of Music in Boston.[4] Lemke then moved to New York and began performing in clubs. Fans urged her to adopt a stage name to avoid confusion with Alicia Keys, so she chose the name Alice and the Glass Lake, which she chose as an ode to a lake in northern Wisconsin at which her family had a cabin.[1][5] In 2009, Lemke created a YouTube channel where she uploaded videos of covers and original compositions.[6]
On June 20, 2012, Internet celebrity Matt Harding released "Where the Hell is Matt? 2012", which used the song "Trip the Light", composed by Garry Schyman and sung by Lemke.[7] In 2013, she opened a show for Fleetwood Mac.[2] That year, she had also played at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee.[2] In August 2013, she released her first EP of electronic dream pop.[2] In November, she was labeled as a rising star or artist to watch by Live Fast Magazine and Pigeons & People.[8][9] In December of that year, she was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia while on vacation in France.[2][1][4]
Death and posthumous releases
Lemke died on August 9, 2015, from leukemia.[1] She had been sending notes to her producer about her then-upcoming album Chimaera up to two days before her death.[2] The album was posthumously released on November 18, 2016. CrypticRock gave it five stars out of five,[10] and labeled it as one of its top five pop rock albums of 2016,[11] saying, "Full of hope, pain, and angelic vocals, this is a must listen and surely secures this talented artist's legacy."[11]
Canadian singer Kiesza, a longtime friend, wrote the song "Dearly Beloved" in Lemke's memory. The song was released on January 6, 2017.[12] Lemke posthumously appeared on Eminem's 2017 album, Revival, in the title track "Revival (Interlude)". The vocals were taken from an unreleased song submitted to Eminem in 2012.[13][14]
Two of Lemke's songs appeared in the 2017 Canadian film Suck It Up.[15][4] Her song "Luminous" appeared in an episode of the fourth season of the television series Awkward,[16] an episode of the fourth season of Station 19,[17] and an episode of the first season of Billions.[18]
