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CD Feature/ Lily Green EP

  Tobias

There is a common factor binding together all major record successes of the past ten years: They work brilliantly as aural wallpaper. There is a certain quality in the combination of a band’s songs and the album’s production which gives listeners a cozy feeling and allows them to keep the record spinning again and again while reading “Harry Potter”. Bearing that in mind, Liliy Green’s second EP is as far away from mass consumption as a death metal band playing cover versions of John Cage’s “4:33”.

No, we take that back, she may actually be farther away. This record takes so many twists and turns, tries out so many styles, laughs frantically in the face of expectations and marketing concepts that it is bound to brutally confuse those fell for the powerful catchiness of opening song “patience”. Like a duracel-bunny-version of piano singer/songwriter material, the track sees Lily hammering on the keys with unfettered enthusiasm, making you believe for a moment that there must be a drummer hidden somewhere, and ripping through the chord changes like Michael Schumacher on an adrenalin overdose. A certain hit, if played half-speed. All those in search of something similar will have to wait for the crystaline piano drops of the grand, six minute finale of “Starry Sky”, a simple melodic motive growing subtley and without notice and then echoing away into infinity. Sandwiched in between are angry stabs at the constricted perspectives of society (“With us or”), a heavy creed against a rampant “have it all” mentality (“Take it”), militaristic drum-machine crescendos, floating cembalo dreams and bizarre electronic sceneries. If Green’s roots truly lie both with contemporary sound sculptors and Beethoven, the former have clearyl left a more adible stamp. And yet, the mixture is definitely without direct comparison and takes a couple of spins until it makes sense – this album needs the disruptions, breaks and flaws in its texture, because it is about disruptions, breaks and flaws. It is a conscious statement against the dictates of an aesthetic, which comes hidden underneath the cloak of perfection, but in truth is nothing but utter mediocrity. Really turning your inside out, Green seems to say, means accepting your contradictions and paradoxes.

Everybody succumbs to the power of the first impression, but aren’t our best friends quite often people whose presence we initially find unbearable? This EP is the direct antithesis to background amusement, to feel-goodism and to consensus. It is a relentless soul show which more than once offends and raises an eyebrow. But by doing so, it also paves the way for a conversation, a dialogue and, eventually, understanding. Don’t expect it anywhere near the Billboard Top 200 any time soon.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Lily Green
Homepage: Lily Green at MySpace