As Elvis Depressedly, Mat Cothran (Coma Cinema, Gremlins) weaves downbeat, primarily melodic soundscapes with guitars and keyboards as well as manipulated sounds and found audio fragments. He debuted the project in August 2011 with an EP of experimental instrumentals called Save the Planet Kill Yourself but quickly adopted a more structured approach starting with the lo-fi songs of the Goner EP before the end of the year. Following a number of short-form releases, Elvis Depressedly signed with Run for Cover Records in time for his first full-length, 2015's New Alhambra.

Cothran launched Elvis Depressedly in Columbia, South Carolina in 2011 following three lo-fi pop albums under the banner Coma Cinema. The debut EP Save the Planet Kill Yourself, which appeared in August 2011, saw him handling most of the instruments himself. A fistful of Elvis Depressedly releases appeared over the next year, including several singles and EPs Cothran issued digitally, as well as two cassette albums from Orchid Tapes, Mickey's Dead (July 2012) and Hotter Sadness (October 2012). He also put out the anthology Cutters Only, the Ontological Anarchy of Elvis Depressedly, which tweaked his earliest material and offered two previously unreleased songs.

Elvis Depressedly soon evolved into a band with the addition of multi-instrumentalists including frequent contributor Delaney Mills. The year 2013 brought the Coma Cinema album Posthumous Release as well as Elvis Depressedly's Holo Pleasures, a six-song EP that boosted the group's profile and helped bring them to the attention of Run for Cover Records. With Cothran newly based in Asheville, North Carolina, the label struck a deal with Elvis Depressedly to release the full-length New Alhambra, which appeared in May 2015. In the meantime, Cothran also recorded solo material as Mathew Lee Cothan and with additional side project Gremlins. In 2016, Run for Cover delivered Elvis Depressedly's Holo Pleasures/California Dreamin', which combined the 2013 EP with a previously unreleased six-track EP recorded during the same sessions.

In early 2017, Cothran issued a set of lo-fi songs called Judas Hung Himself in America under his own name before retiring Coma Cinema with the home-recorded album Loss Memory later the same year. Another solo album, My First Love Mends My Final Days, appeared in mid-2018. Having dissolved the band, and embracing more electronic and psychedelic elements than on his solo material, Elvis Depressedly's second official album, Depressedelica, followed in April 2020. ~ Mark Deming & Marcy Donelson, Rovi