Lilys - 'In the Presence of Nothing' (spinART)

And so here begins a brief foray into the work of Lilys, a memorable outlier from the 90s white American indie guitardrome, whose work still resonates with me a ton, almost irrationally so as the future keeps on happening. This first album (here sampled as a 1998 repress/reissue with different cover art from the handmade OGs) firmly planted its flag in shoegazer territory, and only hints at its own identity in flashes. It was fine to ape My Bloody Valentine in '92 –– everyone was doing it, after all –– and Lilys on this record really got this bending whammy bar sound, just like on 'To Here Knows When', which I guess is what 'Tone Bender' is about. Said song alternates between a plodding, thick low-end by the rhythm section, and then a lightening up to let some relatively unaffected guitar strings scratch through, and back and forth and back and forth. Lyrics occasionally poke out of the morass, but it's more a feeling than anything to sing along with, and yet this is actually a pretty clear-sounding record that has pretty solid separation between the instruments. The opening cut, 'There's No Such Things As Black Orchids', is practically a MBV homage, but I still love it anyway. Why listen to a record of a band that hasn't yet found their voice? Well, for Lilys/Heasley that's not such a straightforward proposition; after 25 years of loving this band (while also finding something exasperating about them), I can't put into words what makes his music greater than just a clone of whatever was on his playlist at the time, but I know that you hear a ton of it in 'Elizabeth Colour Wheel' (complete with UK/correct spelling, a subtle nod to his Anglophilia for those paying attention). Of course his voice is part of it, a singing tone perfect for being buried in fuzz and reverb, but there's a little more mystery between the effects, as if this band is curious about more than just seeing what sounds guitars can make but you're going to have to work, and infuse your own interpretations of what that might be. The rhythm section is more than competent here; uncredited, but apparently containing members of Velocity Girl. But no member of Lilys is long for being in that band, and being the debut LP is no exception. This is quite a different record than what was to follow (though to be honest, Lilys didn't do abrupt 180s, gradually shifting from sunny hooks towards the dreamy haze of their next record, their masterpiece, into more overtly 60s/mod-influenced pop, into whatever unique hybrid they had become by the time of the major label signing). Sole Actual Lily Kurt Heasley is known as a somewhat difficult figure, a personalty that shifts as much as the sound of his band does. I've never met him but have come to feel he's a bit of a genius in disguise; to dismiss him as a soldier of pastiche is missing the point. The long track here, 'The Way Snowflakes Fall', builds up from a fluid type of group improvisation that would have fit on a Jewelled Antler CDr a decade or so later. It's in this track that I really hear a mastery of what he was trying to do; this isn't a band doing shoegaze-indie music pop to latch onto a trend, but exploring sound expression through the lens of shoegaze-indie. I guess I'm a completely unapologetic Lilys defender now in 2020, and I'm going to gush even more about the next one, but 'The Way Snowflakes Fall', with its static-industrial bedsheets and converging resonance, is clearly more than a band of coattail-hangers trying to flex their long-form muscles.

Liliput (Rough Trade)

I first read about Kleenex/Liliput through one of those collections of writings about post-punk music that I checked out of the library when younger –– it was either Greil Marcus or Simon Reynolds, and the fact I can't remember is funny because those two writers are pretty different. I swear the article claimed that they invented their own language to sing in, but maybe I imagined that. Anyway, over the years, I've played this Liliput record occasionally, always impressed when I did, but never falling in love with it, and never becoming too intimate with the rest of their discography (which Mississippi compiled onto a 4 LP set awhile back). This is pretty weird and imaginative rock music, though, with start-stop motion made gentler through an awareness of texture and tension. The lyrics sheet is bilingual those most songs appear to be sung in English (with 'Tschik-mo', not printed here, possibly being in another language, but I'm so Deutsch-dumb that maybe I just don't know what German sounds like). This has the distinction of being the first record I have played in a new house/room/turntable setup, and today I'm hearing all screaming mids, the sibilance of the punchy electric bass mixing with guitars occasionally played above the nut or below the bridge. The credits don't indicate a full-time drummer, but percussion is super heavy throughout, with 'Umamm' the fullest expression of this, coming across like a track from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts soaked in ether. The vocals, happy to lurch between language and more guttural shrieks and grunts, have a nice interplay with each other when two vocalists are playing off each other ('Outburst'), and the tempo stays peppy throughout, with the aforementioned 'Tschik-mo' a notable exception, that one pulsing along with a single heavy bass note as the engine, like a clock tower ringing out over a strange wide sky. What sort of world does this band express? Lyrics such as 'Close your eyes, you're as good as lost' suggest a world of psychological despair or a horror show, but then the music doesn't go for easy terror tropes. 'Might is Right' has an almost folky cadence to it, gently sung, and flute as well; the lyrics, an impressionistic structural observation on death and power, reminds me of the kind of lyrics Stereolab could deliver so succinctly in their amazing mid-period; the Euro-accented singing also helps draw this comparison. Over the years my feelings on Kleenex/Liliput haven't changed; this is totally a unicorn, one of those bands that's simultaneously of their time and completely an anomaly, and it's a sound that seems to have influenced few directly, maybe more in spirit. The winding melodies, off-kilter sonorities, and odd intervals all make this band sound like no one else, even in the forty years since that have birthed plenty of avant-rockers employing similar techniques. The sheer oddity of Liliput is not one that is threatening, but it's enough to keep this record perhaps permanently at arm's length, which is a sort of virtue in ways.

Lightnin' Hopkins (Everest)

My father gave me this record years ago when he was culling his own vinyl accumulation. It's a decent compilation on the esteemed Everest Records Archive of Folk & Jazz Music label, adorned with underwritten liner notes that give no indication where or when the recordings come from, as was the fashion back then. Nor does it give any more information about the identities of 'Brownie' and 'Sonny' who accompany Mr. Hopkins, though the internet reveals that they are Sonny Terry on harmonica and Brownie McGhee on the other acoustic guitar. The solo tracks are wonderfully rambling, the opening 'Big Black Cadillac Blues' really more of a spoken word cut than a song, and 'Brand New Car' containing some more extemporising vocals from Mr. Hopkins, also helped by the backing band and 'Big' Joe Williams also on vocals. Plenty of people have studied this music properly, both amateur and academic scholars, and I have little to add as said field is not my forte, except that  the rare times I throw this on are immensely satisfying. The joy in Hopkins' music is in the drift, the lurching from a well-sung line to a finger-picked run and back, with everyone loosely circling around a centre that likely adheres to the 12-bar (or whatever) format, without ever feeling rigid. The tracks with Terry and McGhee are the high points –– the version of 'I've Been Buked and Scorned' here is amazing, really something that must be heard to be believed –– and Terry's harmonica chops on 'Drinkin' in the Blues' are wonderfully feral. I might just get an extra special personal pleasure from this because it was from my father (who is still alive, this isn't an elegy), which is probably not so interesting for you to read about, but then again, why write these if I don't bring in my personal associations + reactions to it all? I think compilations like this can still be found for nothing, some of the last remaining cheap vinyl in an age where copies of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours sell for over 20€ (at least over here); there's no shame in the compilation, as so much great traditional and classical musics can be discovered though them. And I'll still take anything on vinyl over a certainly-available YouTube rip of dubious quality, which forces one to endure an advertisement burst before the song starts.