Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter Shilpa Ray first made waves in leading the unusual mid-2000s indie rock outfit Beat the Devil, who fused bluesy indie rock with harmonium and Indian time signatures. Over the following decade her music evolved from the torchy blues-punk of her next project, Shilpa Ray Her Happy Hookers, into a series of eclectic solo releases for the Northern Spy label, including 2017's Door Girl and the combative art-pop of 2022's Portrait of a Lady.

Growing up in an Indian-American family in New Jersey, Ray's teenage rebellion soon drew her to punk music and guitar, though her cultural heritage remained a strong thread in her story. Following Beat the Devil's lone 2006 album, the powerfully voiced singer fronted her own similarly minded endeavor, Shilpa Ray Her Happy Hookers, and released A Fish Hook an Open Eye in 2009.

Over the next several years Ray became ingrained in New York's musical culture, signing with Knitting Factory Records and releasing her follow-up, 2011's Teenage and Torture. Her exposure from that album led to a stint opening European and North American tour dates for Nick Cave the Bad Seeds as well as singing backup with the band. Around this same time, she disbanded Her Happy Hookers and made her solo debut on Cave's Bad Seeds Ltd. label with the 2013 EP It's All Self Fellatio. Striking a deal with Northern Spy Records, Ray recorded her first solo full-length, Last Year's Savage, in 2015. Two years later she returned with Door Girl, a loose concept album of sorts documenting New York's seedy underbelly taken from her real-life experiences working the door at the Manhattan rock club Pianos. The two-song Nihilism EP appeared in 2018, after which Ray began working on songs for her next full-length.

Released first as EP, Bootlickers of the Partriarchy was a fiery condemnation of Republican Senator Susan Collins' famous speech following the 2018 Supreme Court nomination hearings for Judge Kavanaugh. Backed by a cover of Ministry's "I'm Not an Effigy," the song was later included on Ray's 2022 full-length Portrait of a Lady, a record that covered a wide range from topics from the socio-political to the deeply personal. ~ Timothy Monger, Rovi