Lilys “With Candy”
Thursday, January 5, 2006
It’s been almost three years, and I still haven’t gotten my head fully around Kurt Heasley’s blurry opus Precollection. Each time I listen, I experience something not exactly new, but a bit different from the previous time. Like the music has been slightly warped–or unwarped. Or something. It’s as fractured and challenging a listen as current psych-pop offers while still retaining a shape, and it’s also the main reason I’m excited for the new Lilys record, Everything Wrong is Imaginary. I can say that I have a reasonable expectation about what I might hear, but, more than with most other music, I have no idea what it will eventually turn into.
First single “With Candy” is intriguing enough–all skitter and skew, it’s like looking at a pop song in a magnifying glass. Everything normally small is oblong and abnormally stretched, while still offering a good glimpse at what it used to be. Heasley’s voice is no exception to this rule; he pulls his syllables around like taffy and lapses into falsetto at a second’s notice, while intoning the Carroll-esque “I know you probably like you never will”. As a first single, “Candy” expresses the album title’s sentiment perfectly. Put headphones on and crank this one–it’s worth it.
Everything Wrong is Imaginary comes out February 21 on Manifesto. You might want to dig Lilys’ MySpace for more info, too.
Precollection is excellent, earlier stuff even better – A Brief History Of Amazing Letdowns…
With Candy is definitely skittered and skewed. I question whether to admit this but… if Heasley’s vocals weren’t there I would think I was listening to an early Isaac Brock (Modest Mouse) tune. Which on second thought is not a bad thing since I always have liked Modest Mouse…
D–why shouldn’t I have known that their shoegaze album would be your favorite
yeah, I am pretty predictable at times when it comes to that sound…..
This album is great so far!
um, i really wouldn’t describe A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns as shoegazer in any sense of the word. it seems to be Heasley’s first foray into early indie-rock somewhat akin to contemporaries such as the Wedding Present – “Ginger.” and “Any Place I’ve Lived” seems to have been a blueprint for indie-pop in the years that followed – i.e. early Apples in Stereo