musician
ZORA
LUCENT
Driven by experiences of transformation, catharsis, and the divine through music, Zora offers to guide listeners into watery depths and intro-spective otherworlds. Her
music breathes with a peculiar tenderness and evanescent liminality - a poetic ushering into deep and numinous realms.
artist
"Zora's compositions artfully evoke deep emotions and long-buried memories, reminiscent of forgotten whispers from past lives." - Katarina Gryvul
bio
Zora Lucent (the moniker of Nora Jane Messerich) summons a spectral presence through her immersive sonic and performance art creations, exploring the territory of elemental spiritual sci-fi. As a composer, producer, vocalist, and DJ, she blends unsettling vocal processing, chamber-classical instrumentation, and earth-shaking electronic textures to conjure new imaginings of reality. Her work is fueled by a desire to evoke transformation, catharsis, and encounters with the divine. Through her music, Lucent leads audiences into watery depths and introspective otherworlds, where peculiar tenderness and evanescent liminality intertwine—a poetic ushering into deep, numinous realms.


Navigating the convergence of the ancient and timeless with the progressive and futuristic, the sublime with the grotesque, and the human with the nonhuman, Zora crafts sonic experiences that captivate through a numinous strangeness and delicate ephemerality. She aims to facilitate a gentle alchemy, guiding listeners into hidden, contemplative realms where echoes of ancestors and past lives resonate, unearthing profound connections along the way.
Continued...
Background

Messerich had an affinity for expression through the voice from an early age, singing religious, choral, pop and alternative music throughout her upbringing in St. Paul, MN. She was also immersed in experiences of the unseen, growing up in a haunted house, and ritual, being raised Roman Catholic, themes that ripple into her art today. She kicked off her serious study of music with a Bachelors (Honors) in Music from the University of Glasgow. After moving to New Orleans in her early twenties, she collaboratively created electro-chamber music for which she composed and performed voice with electronics and a home-made glass harp. Finally, with her solo project Zora Lucent, she shifted into more purely creating art of her own vision and essence. Following her debut release, ‘Verilux’, she elevated her music production and compositional abilities through ongoing mentorship with artist Katarina Gryvul. With her second LP 'Astoria', releaed through White Forest Records based in Rome, IT, Zora brought her music into more visceral and sonically defined territories. Zora's experimental spirit combined with her affinity for darker colorings and delicate textures come together to form a sonic world that is distinctively hers.
PRESS
Week in Pop - ‘Verilux’ Premiere June 2023
  • “[Zora Lucent] delivers a succinct pop symphony in seven moments that swims the depths of oceanic underworlds as well as the outer dimensions of consciousness.”
  • “Verilux transports the audience to a concerto that melts down the mold of the modern classical into the molten liquid orr of psychic subterranean experimentation.”


Week in Pop
Antigravity
Riverbeats - ‘Verilux’ Premiere June 2023
  • “With a tapestry of haunting melodies, the album evokes fluidity, transformation, and nonlinear time.”
  • “Her debut solo album, Verilux, serves as a testament to her boundless creativity and ability to transcend genre limitations. With each ethereal note, Zora invites us to venture beyond the familiar and immerse ourselves in a sonic universe where ancient echoes mingle with futuristic vibrations. Zora Lucent has gifted us with a mesmerizing tapestry of sound, leaving an indelible mark on our hearts and igniting our imagination to seek out new sonic frontiers.”
The Gambit - ‘Verilux’ Premiere July 2023
“Verilux is a fascinating album of ethereal, expansive works blending vocal experimentation, glitchy electronics, percussive beats and string arrangements.”
Riverbeats
The Gambit
reviews
“Zora Lucent's music is a delicate tapestry on the canvas of sound, earning its place as a nuanced masterpiece. Within this sonic realm, fragility and ritualistic beauty offer an immersive experience that transcends conventional boundaries. Zora's compositions artfully evoke deep emotions and long-buried memories, reminiscent of forgotten whispers from past lives. The integration of processed vocals adds another layer, propelling the listener into an ethereal journey through the unexplored corridors of contemporary and experimental realms. With harmonies that gleam like glass, Zora Lucent invites us into a mesmerizing landscape where the familiar and the avant-garde converge. This album cements Zora's status as a visionary, pushing the boundaries of musical exploration.”
Katarina Gryvul
“With a tapestry of haunting melodies, the album evokes fluidity, transformation, and nonlinear time.”
“[Zora's] debut solo album, Verilux, serves as a testament to her boundless creativity and ability to transcend genre limitations. With each ethereal note, Zora invites us to venture beyond the familiar and immerse ourselves in a sonic universe where ancient echoes mingle with futuristic vibrations. Zora Lucent has gifted us with a mesmerizing tapestry of sound, leaving an indelible mark on our hearts and igniting our imagination to seek out new sonic frontiers.”
Riverbeats
“[Zora Lucent] delivers a succinct pop symphony in seven moments that swims the depths of oceanic underworlds as well as the outer dimensions of consciousness.”
“Verilux transports the audience to a concerto that melts down the mold of the modern classical into the molten liquid orr of psychic subterranean experimentation.”

“Verilux is a fascinating album of ethereal, expansive works blending vocal experimentation, glitchy electronics, percussive beats and string arrangements.”
Week in Pop
The Gambit
“To merely call [Zora] a singer would be offensively reductive, as her mastery of the palette of SOUNDS that a vocalist can produce...easily transcend category... This, coupled with the otherworldly sounds produced from their home-made wine glass harp wielded by [Zora]..., made for a truly cosmic, transcendental listening experience that, for the first time in recent memory, moved me to tears.”

Nick Benoit, Offbeat Magazine

GALLERY
LISTEN
LIVE FOOTAGE
Coming soon.
W A T E R...Bodies of Water. Caves of Ice. Subconscious Depths and Multidimensional Expanse. Spirality... Arranged Sound as P O R T A L. Nonlinear Time. Deep Time. Timelessness. Stillness. a Clearing, a Clearing. a Reprieve. Deepening of Self Understanding. Embodied Knowing. “Truth Glowing with Light." Viscerality. Vvisssscerality. H Y P N O S I S into Other Realms. Loss, Loss, Longing. “Fervence of my Longing.” Gentle Textures as a Holding. Floating. Floating. Hypnotic Flow for Healing. "I Taste the Wholeness that Once Was." Mystical and Earthly Worlds. Interwoven. Frequency as Energy. Music as Energy Work. Vulnerability as Practice. Voice as Vulnerable. Voice as E V O C A T I V E. Direct Expression of Self. Direct Expression of Truth. Painting with Sound. Devotion. Devotional Mystery. Touching the Mystery. I Devote Myself to the Mystery. I Devote Myself to Creativity. I Devote Myself to…
zora.lucent@gmail.com
Located in New Orleans, LA
Made on
Tilda