| Lilies on Mars — ∆GO (October 16th, 2015) |
Lilies on Mars — ∆GO (October 16th, 2015)
♠•≡♠ Led by a pair of old friends hailing from Sardinia, Lilies on Mars makes adventurous dream pop akin to Blonde Redhead and Au Revoir Simone. NASA HAVE CONFIRMED LILIES ON MARS ARE NOT ACTUALLY FROM “MARS” BUT UNDISCOVERED PLANET CALLED “SARDINIA”. TA score: *******¾
Location: Cagliari, Sardinia ~~ London, UK
Album release: October 16th, 2015
Record Label: Lady Sometimes Rec. / Cargo Records UK
Duration: 40:58
Tracks:
01. Stealing 5:19
02. Dancing Star 4:20
03. It Might Be 3:34
04. It Was Only Smoke 4:15
05. From The Earth To Above 4:22
06. Midnight Fall 3:32
07. Sympathize 3:08
08. Rachel Walks By The Sea 4:56
09. I’ve Got You 7:32
℗ 2015 Lady Sometimes Records
Credits:
♣♠ Lisa Masia Composer, Engineer, Mixing, Producer
♠♣ Marina Cristofala Composer, Engineer, Producer
♦♦ Carl Saff Mastering
Louder Than War’s Paul Scott–Bates reviews. 25 September 2015 / Score: 8.5 / 10
♠•≡♠ Originally from the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, the duo of Lisa Masia and Marina Cristofalo moved to London some thirteen years ago. Their passion for long nights of music resulted in improvisations which were recorded post haste whilst ideas were fresh. The subsequent nine tracks have given Lilies On Mars a quite stunning, and often beautiful album.
♠•≡♠ Sounding almost like an early 80s alternative synth album, the girls have given the songs a truly modern twist. Opener, Stealing has incisive and hard percussion which pounds out every beat with clinical precision, indeed the latter is the often singular item that raises the tracks above any other synth pop attempts. Recent single the infuriatingly addictive Dancing Star has vocal hooks which will embed themselves in your head and space–age trippy sounds that shimmer and shine into a quite remarkable track. Indeed, the theme of sugar–sweet vocals and near trippy sounds are the common theme throughout and knit together perfectly.
♠•≡♠ There would always have been the danger of ∆GO sounding slightly dated had Lilies On Mars been content with the analogue equipment that they use, but their insistence on moving this forward has paid huge dividends. The often dreamlike, sometimes indecipherable lyrics twist and swirl around ethereal instrumentation and catchy hooks which not only provide a reminder of the synth classics of the early 80s, but also look forward to a new sound which is full of promise.
♠•≡♠ It Was Only Smoke slows the pace somewhat, but with a semi–dubbed backing it falls naturally into place. Vocals provide fantasy moments and the leisurely feel is nothing short of sumptuous. From The Earth To Above begins like an OMD standard and that’s no bad thing, in fact given the impact and influence they had on pop music, it’s a huge compliment.
♠•≡♠ Rachel Walks By The Sea oozes a breathless sexuality before breaking into a speedy instrumental with a strong Kraut–rock feel and album closer I’ve Got You is so incredibly beautiful that it’s hard to comprehend. With comparisons to Princess Chelsea’s Great Cybernetic Depression, soft, gentle voices over the most minimal backing disappear into a black hole of near nothingness before fading out of view via random blips and beeps. ♠ http://louderthanwar.com/
REVIEW
BY MATT JAMES, 22 September 2015; Score: 6
♠•≡♠ Watch the Skies! Lilies on Mars’ fourth encounter sounds more like it was born in a galaxy far, far away than a breezy beach house in sweltering Sardinia. Although let’s be honest, in ‘Popworld’ terms, Sardinia is pretty bloody far, far away. Mars stars Lisa Masia and Marina Cristofalo have peeked behind the sun to channel their interstellar inspirations through “Matter, waves and radiation” and create brave new world music that is “Looking UP”. Holy Corona! Thus, ∆GO is cosmic, crystalline, cool, cosmic (again) and sometimes just plain cryptic. Now hold on to the guide rope, ‘cos ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space…
♠•≡♠ At first contact, ∆GO speaks in a language we puny earthlings might understand. The sound of pop’s future as seen from its past. “Stealing” echoes the swish electronica of the early ‘90s — St Etienne, One Dove, Sunscreem — with sweet Lemonade vocals, glamour splash percussion and spiralling, glass elevator synths. But under the sleek synthetic sheen though there’s a bad seed for darker days ahead: “You have fun but there’s someone else stealing all your rights.” Fellow space cadet and full–time Horror Tom Furse adds some widescreen glacial grandeur to recent single “Dancing Star”. It glides the star line between Depeche Mode and Ladytron possibly whilst sporting a swanky silver spacesuit, big hair and bigger sunglasses, “Dancing st–arrr, sexy moves / No space, no time!”. It’s all slightly silly in a Buck Rogers versus Twiki ‘Dance Off’ sorta way but scrumptiously so. The booty shakin’ “It Might Be” is funkier still with otherworldly vocals (“I might be blind in fact I won’t hide”??) and a groovy, boogie–down bass riff worthy of Glass Candy. The track that’s most likely to rock your world though is “From the Earth to Above” which arrives like some celestial Grimes/Kraftwerk mutation. It’s propulsive, locomotive heart dreams of infinity and beyond. “I wish I had a lemon tree / The roots around my knees”, it revels in rapturous bliss, clearly high on candy–perfumed moondust. Oh, what an atmosphere.
♠•≡♠ ∆GO doesn’t waste much time in Earth’s orbit though and soon drifts away, touching from a distance. The optimistic, starry–eyed pop of its youth fades to be replaced by aged, ‘dark matter’. “It Was Only Smoke” is the sound of alien tears in the abyss. Warped weeping strings, dragged percussion, glitchy shadows and apparitions. Its isolated narrator slowly surrendering to a miasma of dissipating dreams, “The idea of you has gone, it was only smoke… I want to smoke.” The ghosts in the machine of “Midnight Fall” could be Crystal Castles at their most obscure. Suffocated, reptilian rattle. Diseased heartbeats. Contorted speech. Not something you’ll be whistling in the rocket home. Elsewhere “Sympathize” claws like mutinous replicants flipping the script on their masters, “You owe me more / Bye bye.” But the rugrat vocals and repetitive rhythms grate to the point where you’ll be desperate to pull the plug and just, well, enjoy the silence. Luckily “Rachel Walks By The Sea” proves more inviting particularly during its pogo–friendly, ‘sugar rush’ outro. Its menacing mantra is hissed with devilish, teeth–clenched relish, “Rachel wants some sleeeeep.” Quick! To the escape pod!
♠•≡♠ Despite ∆GO‘s second–half not always being ‘out–of–this–world’, its last transmission home is certainly worth intercepting. The seven–minute, final frontier “I’ve Got You” is part valentine, part funeral. It’s the haunted, sad robot powering down for the last time, throwing its tin limbs around a cherished digital memory as the light fades from its eyes, “Inside my head I’ve got you.” A death star as oddly moving as Crystal Castles’ “I Am Made of Chalk”. Its mournful, musicbox melody is slowly swallowed into a black hole of random, headless bleeps and the howl of infinite space. It’s a genuine Roy Batty ‘sat–in–his–pants’, “All these moments will be lost like tears in rain” moment and, yes, almost more human than human.
♠•≡♠ ∆GO is a strange, mysterious visitor. It’s an intriguing intergalactic curio, both odd and familiar, part pop, part science experiment. Lilies’ retro futurism may occasionally move too mechanically or slip into Machina repetition but there are many sparkling glimmers of genuine warmth, spirit and wonder too. There’s certainly enough life on Mars’ flying saucer to at least venture up the ramp and have a good gander around the Mothership, though perhaps not quite enough to kiss your life goodbye and fly ‘up, up and away’ forever. ♠•≡♠ http://www.popmatters.com/
Website: http://liliesonmars.com/
MySpace: https://myspace.com/liliesonmars
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/lilies-on-mars
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liliesonmarsofficial/info?tab=overview
Discography:
• 2008 Lilies on Mars (Lilies on Mars)
• 2014 Dot to Dot (Saint Marie Records)
• 2015 Ago (Lady Sometimes Records)
• xxxx Wish You Were A Pony (Elsewherefactory Records)
_____________________________________________________________
| Lilies on Mars — ∆GO (October 16th, 2015) |
Album release: October 16th, 2015
Record Label: Lady Sometimes Rec. / Cargo Records UK
Duration: 40:58
Tracks:
01. Stealing 5:19
02. Dancing Star 4:20
03. It Might Be 3:34
04. It Was Only Smoke 4:15
05. From The Earth To Above 4:22
06. Midnight Fall 3:32
07. Sympathize 3:08
08. Rachel Walks By The Sea 4:56
09. I’ve Got You 7:32
℗ 2015 Lady Sometimes Records
Credits:
♣♠ Lisa Masia Composer, Engineer, Mixing, Producer
♠♣ Marina Cristofala Composer, Engineer, Producer
♦♦ Carl Saff Mastering
Louder Than War’s Paul Scott–Bates reviews. 25 September 2015 / Score: 8.5 / 10
♠•≡♠ Originally from the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, the duo of Lisa Masia and Marina Cristofalo moved to London some thirteen years ago. Their passion for long nights of music resulted in improvisations which were recorded post haste whilst ideas were fresh. The subsequent nine tracks have given Lilies On Mars a quite stunning, and often beautiful album.
♠•≡♠ Sounding almost like an early 80s alternative synth album, the girls have given the songs a truly modern twist. Opener, Stealing has incisive and hard percussion which pounds out every beat with clinical precision, indeed the latter is the often singular item that raises the tracks above any other synth pop attempts. Recent single the infuriatingly addictive Dancing Star has vocal hooks which will embed themselves in your head and space–age trippy sounds that shimmer and shine into a quite remarkable track. Indeed, the theme of sugar–sweet vocals and near trippy sounds are the common theme throughout and knit together perfectly.
♠•≡♠ It Was Only Smoke slows the pace somewhat, but with a semi–dubbed backing it falls naturally into place. Vocals provide fantasy moments and the leisurely feel is nothing short of sumptuous. From The Earth To Above begins like an OMD standard and that’s no bad thing, in fact given the impact and influence they had on pop music, it’s a huge compliment.
♠•≡♠ Rachel Walks By The Sea oozes a breathless sexuality before breaking into a speedy instrumental with a strong Kraut–rock feel and album closer I’ve Got You is so incredibly beautiful that it’s hard to comprehend. With comparisons to Princess Chelsea’s Great Cybernetic Depression, soft, gentle voices over the most minimal backing disappear into a black hole of near nothingness before fading out of view via random blips and beeps. ♠ http://louderthanwar.com/
BY MATT JAMES, 22 September 2015; Score: 6
♠•≡♠ Watch the Skies! Lilies on Mars’ fourth encounter sounds more like it was born in a galaxy far, far away than a breezy beach house in sweltering Sardinia. Although let’s be honest, in ‘Popworld’ terms, Sardinia is pretty bloody far, far away. Mars stars Lisa Masia and Marina Cristofalo have peeked behind the sun to channel their interstellar inspirations through “Matter, waves and radiation” and create brave new world music that is “Looking UP”. Holy Corona! Thus, ∆GO is cosmic, crystalline, cool, cosmic (again) and sometimes just plain cryptic. Now hold on to the guide rope, ‘cos ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space…
♠•≡♠ At first contact, ∆GO speaks in a language we puny earthlings might understand. The sound of pop’s future as seen from its past. “Stealing” echoes the swish electronica of the early ‘90s — St Etienne, One Dove, Sunscreem — with sweet Lemonade vocals, glamour splash percussion and spiralling, glass elevator synths. But under the sleek synthetic sheen though there’s a bad seed for darker days ahead: “You have fun but there’s someone else stealing all your rights.” Fellow space cadet and full–time Horror Tom Furse adds some widescreen glacial grandeur to recent single “Dancing Star”. It glides the star line between Depeche Mode and Ladytron possibly whilst sporting a swanky silver spacesuit, big hair and bigger sunglasses, “Dancing st–arrr, sexy moves / No space, no time!”. It’s all slightly silly in a Buck Rogers versus Twiki ‘Dance Off’ sorta way but scrumptiously so. The booty shakin’ “It Might Be” is funkier still with otherworldly vocals (“I might be blind in fact I won’t hide”??) and a groovy, boogie–down bass riff worthy of Glass Candy. The track that’s most likely to rock your world though is “From the Earth to Above” which arrives like some celestial Grimes/Kraftwerk mutation. It’s propulsive, locomotive heart dreams of infinity and beyond. “I wish I had a lemon tree / The roots around my knees”, it revels in rapturous bliss, clearly high on candy–perfumed moondust. Oh, what an atmosphere.
♠•≡♠ ∆GO doesn’t waste much time in Earth’s orbit though and soon drifts away, touching from a distance. The optimistic, starry–eyed pop of its youth fades to be replaced by aged, ‘dark matter’. “It Was Only Smoke” is the sound of alien tears in the abyss. Warped weeping strings, dragged percussion, glitchy shadows and apparitions. Its isolated narrator slowly surrendering to a miasma of dissipating dreams, “The idea of you has gone, it was only smoke… I want to smoke.” The ghosts in the machine of “Midnight Fall” could be Crystal Castles at their most obscure. Suffocated, reptilian rattle. Diseased heartbeats. Contorted speech. Not something you’ll be whistling in the rocket home. Elsewhere “Sympathize” claws like mutinous replicants flipping the script on their masters, “You owe me more / Bye bye.” But the rugrat vocals and repetitive rhythms grate to the point where you’ll be desperate to pull the plug and just, well, enjoy the silence. Luckily “Rachel Walks By The Sea” proves more inviting particularly during its pogo–friendly, ‘sugar rush’ outro. Its menacing mantra is hissed with devilish, teeth–clenched relish, “Rachel wants some sleeeeep.” Quick! To the escape pod!
♠•≡♠ Despite ∆GO‘s second–half not always being ‘out–of–this–world’, its last transmission home is certainly worth intercepting. The seven–minute, final frontier “I’ve Got You” is part valentine, part funeral. It’s the haunted, sad robot powering down for the last time, throwing its tin limbs around a cherished digital memory as the light fades from its eyes, “Inside my head I’ve got you.” A death star as oddly moving as Crystal Castles’ “I Am Made of Chalk”. Its mournful, musicbox melody is slowly swallowed into a black hole of random, headless bleeps and the howl of infinite space. It’s a genuine Roy Batty ‘sat–in–his–pants’, “All these moments will be lost like tears in rain” moment and, yes, almost more human than human.
♠•≡♠ ∆GO is a strange, mysterious visitor. It’s an intriguing intergalactic curio, both odd and familiar, part pop, part science experiment. Lilies’ retro futurism may occasionally move too mechanically or slip into Machina repetition but there are many sparkling glimmers of genuine warmth, spirit and wonder too. There’s certainly enough life on Mars’ flying saucer to at least venture up the ramp and have a good gander around the Mothership, though perhaps not quite enough to kiss your life goodbye and fly ‘up, up and away’ forever. ♠•≡♠ http://www.popmatters.com/
Website: http://liliesonmars.com/
MySpace: https://myspace.com/liliesonmars
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/lilies-on-mars
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/liliesonmarsofficial/info?tab=overview
• 2008 Lilies on Mars (Lilies on Mars)
• 2014 Dot to Dot (Saint Marie Records)
• 2015 Ago (Lady Sometimes Records)
• xxxx Wish You Were A Pony (Elsewherefactory Records)