Elvis Depressedly

Mat Cothran, previously active in Coma Cinema and Gremlins, constructs somber yet tuneful sonic textures under the Elvis Depressedly name through guitars, keyboards, processed noises, and sampled audio fragments. The project surfaced in August 2011 with the experimental-instrumental EP Save the Planet Kill Yourself, though Cothran soon favored tighter song forms on the lo-fi Goner EP before December arrived. Multiple short releases later led to a partnership with Run for Cover Records that yielded the first proper album, New Alhambra, in 2015.

Cothran originated Elvis Depressedly in Columbia, South Carolina during 2011, after issuing three lo-fi pop albums as Coma Cinema. On Save the Planet Kill Yourself he performed nearly every instrument. A cluster of further Elvis Depressedly items followed within the next twelve months, encompassing digitally issued singles and EPs plus the Orchid Tapes cassettes Mickey's Dead (July 2012) and Hotter Sadness (October 2012). He additionally compiled Cutters Only, the Ontological Anarchy of Elvis Depressedly, revising early recordings while adding two previously unheard tracks.

The project expanded into a band format once multi-instrumentalists, among them recurring collaborator Delaney Mills, joined. During 2013 the Coma Cinema album Posthumous Release appeared alongside Elvis Depressedly’s six-song EP Holo Pleasures, which lifted the group’s profile and drew Run for Cover’s interest. Relocated to Asheville, North Carolina, Cothran finalized an agreement resulting in the May 2015 release of New Alhambra; concurrently he issued solo material as Mathew Lee Cothan and pursued side project Gremlins. In 2016 Run for Cover combined Holo Pleasures with six previously unreleased tracks from the same sessions under the title Holo Pleasures/California Dreamin’.

Early 2017 brought Cothran’s own lo-fi set Judas Hung Himself in America, after which he closed the Coma Cinema chapter with the home-recorded album Loss Memory later that year. Another solo LP, My First Love Mends My Final Days, surfaced in mid-2018. Following the band’s dissolution and a turn toward electronic and psychedelic textures beyond his solo work, Elvis Depressedly issued its second full-length, Depressedelica, in April 2020.