ARTIST: A Lily
TITLE: Wake:Sleep
LABEL: Dynamophone
GENRE: Electronic
BITRATE: 222 kbps avg
PLAYTIME: 1h 09min total
RELEASE DATE: 2006-06-19
RIP DATE: 2006-06-26
Track List
----------
1. I Am To You 4:43
2. Lights Shone Brighter. My 4:12
Delicate Sun Is My Sparklin'
Sun
3. Leanna Is A Quiet Meow 4:22
4. You Are The Sun, Your Eyes Are 4:39
The Sun
5. Aeriels Quiet And 3:57
Death-Defying
6. The Sleepers 4:11
7. Arms Around Sleep 9:51
8. The Shipwreck 33:51
Release Notes:
http://alily.co.uk/
http://myspace.com/alily
a lily is james vella, better known as the guitar player for Burnt Toast and Big
Scary Monsters' instrumental post-rock collective yndi halda. a lily is love
songs for leanna. a lily is delicate guitar picking around a campfire. a lily is
long nights and wide eyed staring at a laptop screen. alas,
a lily is sleepy, gentle, fragile electronics and soft intertwining guitar
lines.
he makes music with a computer and as many instruments as he can find - the
making of wake:sleep included electric and acoustic guitars, accordion, piano,
drums, glockenspiel, bass, lapsteel, zheng, vocals and a light switch
influenced largely by electronic-based post-rock bands - m·m, the album leaf,
amiina, efterklang, mogwai et al, and gentle acoustic folk - mirah, iron and
wine, maria taylor, juana molina etc (that is to say, sweet and gentle), a lily
was born wide-eyed admiration for starry skies, empty beaches, towering trees
and campfires.
What inspired you to write the songs on wake:sleep?
The entirety of wake:sleep is for my girlfriend, Leanna, and was inspired by
her. She's just wonderful. I thought I should try and make something that's just
for her, and writing songs seems to be what I'm best at.
How did you go about recording them?
I record everything in my bedroom/studio, which is a laptop, a hard-drive
recorder, ambient mics and as many instruments as I can find. For wake:sleep, I
used guitar, bass, piano, accordion, drums, glockenspiel, lapsteel, and vocals,
as well as a few programmed synths and recorded samples.
Speak a bit about the last two "ambient" pieces.
The last two pieces were originally recorded just for Leanna's private listening
û for whenever she wanted to sleep to something I'd written û but I ended up
liking them enough to include them on the release. They were both played live,
with improvised guitar through a few delay pedals.
How does the writing process for A Lily differ from your other band, Yndi Halda?
Yndi is a much more gradual process. With that band, we tend to have a
'finished' version of a piece that differs so drastically from the final
arrangement we end up recording, it might as well be a different song. We work
on songs so much even after we've decided to stop doing so. With A Lily, though,
I prefer to just listen to my head for a while, until I can create something in
theory, and then I try to re-create it with real sounds. So it's less about
experimentation and more about translation.
Do you think your environment influences your music?
Definitely. I doubt A Lily or Yndi would sound anything like they do if we
hadn't all grown up in the halcyon summers of south-east Kent and never had to
hear police sirens at night or dodge cars in our playgrounds.ever had to
hear police sirens at night or dodge cars in our playgrounds.