  A well-known result of Brylawski constructs an elementary lift of a matroid
$M$ from a linear class of circuits of $M$. We generalize this result by
showing how to construct a rank-$k$ lift of $M$ from a rank-$k$ matroid on the
set of circuits of $M$. We conjecture that every lift of $M$ arises via this
construction.
  We then apply this result to group-labeled graphs, generalizing a
construction of Zaslavsky. Given a graph $G$ with edges labeled by a group,
Zaslavsky's lift matroid $K$ is an elementary lift of the graphic matroid
$M(G)$ that respects the group-labeling; specifically, the cycles of $G$ that
are circuits of $K$ coincide with the cycles that are balanced with respect to
the group-labeling. For $k \ge 2$, when does there exist a rank-$k$ lift of
$M(G)$ that respects the group-labeling in this same sense? For abelian groups,
we show that such a matroid exists if and only if the group is isomorphic to
the additive group of a non-prime finite field.
