What does it sound like?:
Fourth album (I think) from the Belgian jazz-noir exponent.
More Nina Simone-impacted to these ears – especially on the title track – but still maintaining a distinct low-fi electronica element.
As with No Deal, the album maintains a consistent flow throughout, drawing the listener in, and bringing out more nuances with further listenings.
Also includes a smoky cover of Afro Blu(e), the one “made famous” by Coltrane.
What does it all *mean*?
Ms De Biaisio certainly knows how to mine a rich and rewarding seam of sounds.
Not sure as to lyrical depths, but hoping that @tiggerlion can provide proper/further insights.
Goes well with…
(For my listens to date):
– nothing else, so complete focus
– a late-night degustif
– closing one’s eyes and wallowing in its mood(s)
Release Date:
Might suit people who like…
Other MdeB albums, Nina Simone at her most mellow, good music.
…
Ok.
“Nobody loves me, it’s true…”
See those upsies? One of them was from me 😃
Melanie is a remarkable artist ever willing to experiment. That should be part of the Jazz Diva job description but, sadly, not often enough.
Most of this album was composed and recorded using rudimentary equipment, alone in a hotel room without heating and lighting. The result is very introspective and intimate. Melanie searches her own soul, finding lust, desire, hopes, fears, aspirations. Listening to it is sometimes uncomfortable like stumbling across someone revealing their darkest secrets.
Her band does join in from time to time. However, the drummer, the superlative Dré Pallemaerts and star of Blackened Cities, has very little to do. He only appears on four tracks and for two of those, All My Worlds and the title track, he is credited simply with cymbal. Only Gold Junkies is a fully realised performance and that feels out of place on the album, especially as it’s essentially a remix and edit of Blackened Cities.
But. Overall, the album works. The fewer instruments the better. I love the raw, exposed character of most of these performances. Sitting In The Stairwell is just Melanie singing and clicking her fingers. Lilies itself is a bass, a cymbal, a piano and a voice.
There is much to love and a great deal that’s moving about Lilies. I don’t think it flows as well as No Deal but her and her partners’ songwriting has improved further. It is still growing on me. Lilies represents another step forward in what is shaping up to be a fantastic career.
Just spent the day listening, leaving Gold Junkies out because it is too polished for this album. My! Her singing, both as lead and in backing, is amazingly expressive. Even when the lyrics are written by someone else, it feels intensely personal. Brother is my favourite today. The empty spaces are incredibly evocative, not just on Brother but on most of the rest too. I said the drummer doesn’t do much but what he does is perfect. That cymbal sound is haunting. A brushed snare raises the hairs on my neck. The bass more often carries the rhythm. It’s simple but sets the heart beating that bit faster. The piano interventions tend to be single notes strung together in a delicate melody rather than chords within the rhythm section. It’s best experienced in the second half of Afro Blue, probably the best version I’ve heard. All My Worlds must be the best song *she* has written. It’s a somber march to the gallows, that gorgeous cymbal quietly marking time, over which Melanie sings in a sultry, seductive whisper until she is lost in a regretful wail. Melanie, I love you.
Lilies is a small sounding album, occupying a tiny part of the world, tackling universal issues, full of skirmishes in the complex battle of life. Each minor victory is hard won. Each defeat a calamity. It’s one to listen to frequently. There is much more to Lilies than is revealed the first few times you hear it.
Nice work, Biggles and Tigger. You’ve really got me interested. What an extraordinary woman.
Quick Google. The first Belgian artist ever to appear to Later. What a stupendous booking.