Eccsame the Photon Band

Eccsame the Photon Band
Studio album by Lilys
Released December 1994
Recorded Studio 45, Hartford, Connecticut, 1994
Genre Dream pop/Space rock
Label spinART , Frontier Records
Producer Kurt Heasley, Rich Costey[1]
Lilys chronology
A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns
(1994)		 Eccsame The Photon Band
(1994)		 Better Can't Make Your Life Better
(1996)

Eccsame the Photon Band is the second full-length 1994 album by the American indie rock band, Lilys, originally released on the spinART label.[2] The album saw the band move towards dream pop.[3] The notoriously nomadic Kurt Heasley refers to this period of Lilys history as EPOCH I, also included is his first seven-inch single " February Fourteenth", the mini LP A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns and Lilys' first full-length album, In The Presence of Nothing. Eccsame the Photon Band was recorded at Mike Deming's Studio 45 in Hartford, Connecticut,[4] largely as duo of Heasley and Harold Evans (of Poole).[5]

Eccsame the Photon Band marks Kurt Heasley's Lilys shift to a slower, moodier, and more spaced-out sound. “I went closest to what my 23 year-old brain could stand with Eccsame— to the edge of my own mortality and sanity", Heasley says. “as far as the period, the energy, the zeitgeist of what we were intending, that was the only time we ever did it.”[6]

Robert Christgau described the band's sound as "amplified watercolors".[7]

While Lilys' musical style and approach shifts continually, the early recordings, including the stunning debut album In the Presence of Nothing and Eccsame the Photon Band, were strongly influenced by My Bloody Valentine. The first seven-inch single “February Fourteenth,” released on Slumberland in 1991, even gives direct tribute to their impact. It’s important to note that MBV’s own frontman Kevin Shields is a huge fan of Heasley’s work, and in his book on MBV's Loveless for Continuum’s 33 1/3 series, writer Mike McGonigal called Lilys “the only post-MBV ‘shoegaze’ band that mattered."[8]

"The obscurely titled, Eccsame the Photon Band, is the Lilys' detour into spartan dream-pop," describes AllMusic, "Kurt Heasley's soft, distanced voice is ideally suited to the coldly atmospheric textures of tracks like the languorous opener "High Writer at Home" and the narcotically catchy 'The Hermit Crab', the album is still one of the Lilys' best."[9]

Producer, Rich Costey helped to create the album's iconic textures. Interviewed on the history of Eccsame by Edward Charlton of Clicky Clicky Music, Costey explains: "The drum sound was a combination of several things: the hard, open space that the live room at Studio .45 presented...and also the minimal and incredibly powerful, tasteful playing of Harry Evans. Listening to it today, it seems a study in how a drummer should play to the sound presented to him or her, as opposed to the other way around."[10]

Out of print for over twenty years, the meticulously remastered vinyl version is being re-issued through a revitalized Frontier Records .[11] This 21st anniversary re-release includes original artwork and has an enhanced dynamic range with the reordering of songs. "The Hermit Crab" has been moved and now begins side two, allowing for a deeper cut of side one and therefore increased audio fidelity, creating a more exciting listening than previously available.[12]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[3]
CMJ New Music Monthly(neutral)[13]

The album was described as "one of the Lilys' best" by Jason Ankeny, writing for Allmusic.[3] It was described as "a hallucinatory revelation" by Marc Hogan of Pitchfork Media.[14] Comparing it with the band's previous album, Douglas Wolk, writing for Trouser Press, called it "a much crazier record, and a much quieter one".[5] Andrew Unterberger of Stylus Magazine stated that the album was "not influenced by shoegazing as a genre, but rather as a principle,", calling it "a masterpiece of mood, atmosphere and production."[15] Andrea Moed of CMJ New Music Monthly stated that on the album Heasley "sounds like David Gilmour's slightly less evil twin, numb but not quite comfortable".[13]

Track listing

  1. "High Writer at Home" - 5:53
  2. (untitled) - 0:12
  3. "Day of the Monkey" - 3:49
  4. "FBI and Their Toronto Transmitters" - 3:36
  5. (untitled) - 0:18
  6. "The Turtle Which Died Before Knowing" - 7:56
  7. "The Hermit Crab" - 3:34
  8. (untitled) - 0:16
  9. "Overlit Canyon (The Obscured Wingtip Memoir)" - 5:15
  10. "Hubble" - 6:06
  11. "Kodiak (Reprise)" - 0:49
  12. "Radiotricity" - 3:41
  13. "Your Guest and Host" - 4:40
  14. (untitled) - 4:54

Personnel

[1][16]

References

  1. 1 2 Eccsame the Photon Band CD insert
  2. ↑ Martin Charles Strong (2003). The Great Indie Discography. Canongate U.S. pp. 836–7. ISBN 978-1-84195-335-9.
  3. 1 2 3 Ankeny, Jason "Eccsame the Photon Band Review", Allmusic, Macrovision Corporation, retrieved 26 December 2009
  4. ↑ Daley, David (1995) "Mary Karlzen's Got a Winner; Tanya Tucker, Try Again", Hartford Courant, June 1, 1995, p.18
  5. 1 2 Wolk, Douglas "Lilys", Trouser Press, retrieved 25 December 2009
  6. ↑ Breitling, Jay (2014-12-18). ".: I WILL WRITE A MYSTERY FOR YOU TO SOLVE: An Oral History of Lilys' Astonishing Eccsame The Photon Band". '. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  7. ↑ Murray, Noel (1999) "Rock Steady: Three bands stay true to rock 'n' roll, with mixed results", Nashville Scene, May 20, 1999, retrieved 23 December 2009
  8. ↑ McGonigal, Mike (2007-01-10). My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9780826415486.
  9. ↑ "Eccsame the Photon Band - Lilys | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  10. ↑ Breitling, Jay (2014-12-18). ".: I WILL WRITE A MYSTERY FOR YOU TO SOLVE: An Oral History of Lilys' Astonishing Eccsame The Photon Band". '. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  11. ↑ "Lilys repressing 'Eccsame The Photon Band' on vinyl; Brooklyn shows are this weekend". www.brooklynvegan.com. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  12. ↑ Digital, Martin Defatte for Guerrilla. "Frontier Records | Independent Label Distribution". www.ildistro.com. Retrieved 2016-02-06.
  13. 1 2 Moed, Andrea (1994) "Lilys Eccsame the Photon band", CMJ New Music Monthly, December 1994, p. 22
  14. ↑ Hogan, Marc (2006) "Lilys Everything Wrong is Imaginary", Pitchfork Media, February 22, 2006, retrieved 26 December 2009
  15. ↑ Unterberger, Andrew (2003) "Lilys Precollection", Stylus Magazine, 2003, retrieved 26 December 2009
  16. ↑ Orgera, Alexandra; Saul, James; Howard, Brian, & Rapa, Patrick (2006) "The Lilys Family Tree", Philadelphia City Paper, February 16–22, 2006, retrieved 25 December 2009
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