Lilys

Lilys c1996 – Kurt Heasley (centre) – press photo P J Millson

Lilys playlist

Contributor: Marc Fagel

Washington, DC-based indie band Lilys are one of those acts who have a large catalog of solid, and often great, music, yet it seems nobody you know has ever heard of them. Which may be at least partially explained by the band’s refusal to stick to a particular genre long enough to develop a following. They started out in the early 1990s as a noisy shoegaze band plainly indebted to the likes of My Bloody Valentine, then made an abrupt pivot into baroque pop music out of the Elephant 6 (or XTC) songbook. Later, while keeping the indie pop vibe, they made more obvious stabs at British Invasion beat music with Kinks overtones, then introduced some slightly psychedelicized Britpop tones, before closing things out in 2006 with a record that mashed up all of the above.

The band is essentially a one-man act, singer/multi-instrumentalist Kurt Heasley backed by a revolving cast of musicians to match his ever-changing stylistic muse. They made their long-player debut on 1992’s In The Presence Of Nothing, an album which makes no bones about being an American-styled reworking of My Bloody Valentine’s 1988 breakthrough Isn’t Anything. The gauzy buzzsaw guitars, the jarring tempo and key changes, the largely buried vocals, the hints of jangly pop music just beneath the din – it’s all there. What it may lack in originality it more than makes up for with its varied sonics and compelling songwriting. Standout track Claire Hates Me moves at a perky clip, slightly more akin to 90s indie bands like Yo La Tengo than straight shoegaze.

A 1994 EP, A Brief History Of Amazing Letdowns, stuck to the shoegaze lane, while shedding some of the MbV-styled production weirdness in favor of more bubbly distortion, letting the pop hooks shine through a little more clearly. Lead-off track Ginger starts to hint at the colorful pop direction Lilys would head in later, while still packing a fizzy sonic punch.

The full-lengther that followed later that year, Eccsame The Photon Band, slows things down to a murky crawl and lands in dream pop territory. It’s pretty enough, though a few tracks aside — i.e. the upbeat The Hermit Crab – it feels like a momentary detour.

The real surprise came on 1996’s Better Can’t Make Your Life Better, arguably the band’s career peak, which sees Heasley dropping the shoegaze and dream pop entirely in favor of buoyant, baroque pop music directly in line with the then-nascent Elephant 6 scene. Indeed, much of the record could be mistaken for like-minded music being crafted by bands like The Apples in Stereo and The Minders – perhaps not surprisingly, as Heasley had joined the Apples in the studio for their 1995 debut LP. It’s a wonderful record that offer catchy hooks broken up by more arty, angular stylings. Hard to pick a favorite (or two), but opening track Cambridge California does a nifty job of adding some sprightly jangle to XTC, while A Nanny In Manhattan – the closest the band ever came to a ‘hit’ – filters in some busy psychedelic adventurism akin to Elephant 6 act Olivia Tremor Control.

Having landed in such a fun space, one would’ve expected them to mine it a little longer, but when they returned with 1999’s The 3 Way, Heasley had once again changed direction. Well, maybe in part. The adventurous pop is still there, but run through with more R&B-flavored freakbeat, making it sound like he set out to make another run at Better’s vibe but got sidetracked all weekend with a stack of Kinks and Yardbirds and Zombies records. Which, frankly, turns out pretty great – still catchy as hell, but without some of the fussy studio excess of the prior record. Once again, it’s a terrifically consistent album, making it tough to play favorites. I kinda like The Lost Victory (too short) and Socs Hip (too long), melodic tracks with nostalgic undertones which both channel Ray Davies.

A few oddball EPs also appeared around this time. 1999’s Zero Population Growth was an eminently skippable collection of electronic instrumentals, while a 2000 split-record release paired a handful of old-school Lilys shoegaze/dream pop tracks with some cuts by an unrelated Philadelphia indie band called Apera Ad Astra. 2001’s Selected EP is a little more worthwhile, with a varied mix of songs that traverse the band’s styles from the past decade, from pop to shoegaze.

They returned in 2003 with an album alternately titled either Precollection or The Lilys, depending on geography, with slightly different track lists. It’s another solid package, falling somewhere between its two full-length predecessors – colorful indie pop music, the mid-60s British Invasion influences updated to sound a little more Britpop, with some splashes of laid-back, flowery psychedelia. Songs like You’re Getting Closer bring the XTC/Apples in Stereo-adjacent hooks, while Film’s Camera almost seems to conjure the 80s/90s New Zealand Flying Nun scene with its moody melodicism. Oddly, those two are found only on The Lilys, rather than the gentler Precollection.

Lilys’ final LP, 2006’s Everything Wrong Is Imaginary, feels like an appropriate conclusion to their varied run. Yes, there are the bubbly yet complex pop tracks one would expect after the prior records, albeit with some more eccentricity and skewed flourishes; but the early shoegaze aesthetic also resurfaces, some disorienting buzz infiltrating the hooks. Album opener Black Carpet Magic feels like the band revisiting its early 90s shoegaze and alt.rock stomping grounds, but with more attention to dark, slightly-psychedelic yet melodic hooks.

Alas, aside from some stray tracks and production work, little has been heard from Heasley since, and while he’s still around (playing occasional shows and reissuing early Lilys records), it’s unclear if he has any plans for new music.

Lilys wikipedia

Bandcamp page (reissues)

2021 Kurt Heasley interview (Brooklyn Vegan)

Another 2021 Kurt Heasley interview (Talkhouse)

Lilys biography (AllMusic)

Marc Fagel is a semi-retired securities lawyer living outside San Francisco with his wife and his obscenely oversized music collection. He is the author of the rock lover’s memoir “Jittery White Guy Music”. His daily ruminations on random albums in his collection can be seen on his blog of the same name, or by following him on twitter.

Marc’s previous posts include Dressy Bessy, Mary Lou Lord, Amy Rigby, Young Fresh Fellows, Josh Ritter, The Hold Steady, Game Theory, The Reivers, The Shazam, Guided by Voices, The Connells, Big Audio Dynamite, Sleater-Kinney, Liz Phair, Elephant 6, Apples in Stereo, Sweet, The Bats, Matthew Sweet, Badfinger, New Pornographers, Bettie Serveert, Flaming Lips, Neil Young, My Morning Jacket, Raveonettes, Phish, Luna, Jesus and Mary Chain, Feelies, Genesis, Wilco, King Crimson, Brian Eno

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