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Dilly Dally – Heaven

VÖ: 14.09.2018
Artist: Dilly Dally
Titel: Heaven
Label: Partisan Records / Pias
Formate: CD / LP / LP ltd. / DL / Stream
Styles: Alternative / Indie Rock

Wo das Debutalbum „Sore“ (2015) der kanadischen Indie-Rock/Punk Band noch in Sehnsucht und Wut verwurzelt war, geht es bei „Heaven“ um Hoffnung und Optimismus. Es ist zwar eine emotionale Veränderung, aber Dilly Dally hat sich keineswegs beruhigt. Wenn du denkst, dass das Festhalten an der Hoffnung in einer abgefuckten Welt naiv ist, ist es ihnen egal. Das Leben ist hart, Depressionen sind scheiße und die Straße kann brutal sein. Aber jede Nacht, wenn die Band auf die Bühne tritt, um diese Lieder zu singen, die alle in helles Licht getaucht sind, wird es sich sicher wie der Himmel anfühlen.


Dilly Dally stammen aus Toronto und verstehen es meisterlich, den Punk, die kämpferische Attitüde und den gelangweilten Schmerz ihrer Vorbilder aus den 80ern und 90ern zu einem großen Ganzen zu verbinden. Dilly Dallys Musik und Bühnenshows versprühen den Vibe der Pixies, schreien die Wut von Hole, durchleiden die Verzweiflung eines Kurt Cobains und klingen dabei so frisch und eigenständig, dass es all dieser Personalien eigentlich gar nicht bedarf. Frontfrau Katie Monks schreit, rotzt, grummelt und heult sich durch die Stücke und man hat den Eindruck, sie könnte dabei jederzeit abstürzen. Aber ihre Band lässt es nie dazu kommen. Liz Ball an der Lead-Gitarre und vor allem die Rhythmusgruppe um die beiden Männer, Jimmy Tony am Bass und Benjamin Reinhartz an den Drums, geben ihr immer wieder den musikalischen Halt und verhindern das Abrutschen ins blanke Tohuwabohu. So muss Punk sein: erschöpfend, ausgiebig, angstfrei, aggressiv, leidenschaftlich und vor allem laut, roh und dreckig. Natürlich sind Dilly Dally trotz der beiden Jungs im Team auch politisch, feministisch und eine Frauenband.

Für ihr zweites Album haben Dilly Dally mit dem Produzenten Rob Schnapf (Elliott Smith, Beck) zusammen gearbeitet. Der Albumtitel ist mit Bedacht gewählt. Zurück von den Toten - fast wortwörtlich gemeint - hat man die Sphären des Himmels gestreift, weiß nun mit “Heaven” davon zu berichten.

This feels like the album we’d make if the band died and went to heaven,” erklärt Sängerin und Gitarristin Katie Monks. Nach ihrem Debüt-Werk “Sore” (2015), das voller Anklänge an Sonic Youth, Yeah Yeah Yeahs oder The Pogues war und einer langen und anstrengenden Tour durch Europa und die USA, fühlte man sich an einem Endpunkt angelangt und löste die Band überraschend auf.

Doch umso stärker kehren Dilly Dally nun neu formiert zurück. Alle Dunkelheit, alle Wut einer sicher schwierigen Phase wird aufgearbeitet und dabei in etwas Positives und Energetisches verwandelt. So pendelt “Heaven” zwischen Alternative-Rock und großen Indie-Pop-Momenten (diese Melodien!). Oder aber man beschreibt es mit den Worten Katie Monks: “doom metal vibes with lots of positive messages.”

Wo 'Sore' in Sehnsucht und Wut verwurzelt war, geht es bei 'Heaven' um Hoffnung und Optimismus. Die immer wiederkehrenden Feuerbilder aus dem Debüt der Band sind hier heilenden, therapeutischen Visionen von Wasser und Licht gewichen. Es gibt eine Befreiung in der Musik, schwere Lasten sollen durch schiere Willenskraft aufgehoben werden. Es ist zwar eine emotionale Veränderung, aber Dilly Dally hat sich keineswegs beruhigt.

„Heaven“ beginnt mit dem verträumten "I Feel Free", das als schwebende Klanglandschaft beginnt, bevor es sich in eine ekstatische Hymne für eine Welt verwandelt, die bereit ist, endlich die ganze Dunkelheit und Ernüchterung der letzten Jahre zu verarbeiten. Es beschreibt den Weg der Umkehr und ist ein idealer Ausgangspunkt für ein Album, das darauf abzielt, die Vergangenheit abzustreifen und einen neuen Kurs einzuschlagen. „This song is about getting the band back together. We almost broke up, - well actually we did. I always thought that once the band started doing well, it would make all our problems go away and everyone would be happy. But instead, it sorta illuminated whatever dark energy had been lying around, and things just erupted on tour.” Monks verspricht: “We’ll start it again / In a moment of silence”, während sie durch loslassen Ruhe findet. Während die Musik unbestreitbar wild und agressiv bleibt, ist in jedem Track auch etwas Positives eingewebt.

Das zunächst von einer ruhigen Sanftheit getragene, aber unerbittliche "Believe" besteht auf Selbstvertrauen. “Just imagine being underwater, lost in the ocean somewhere, and faintly hearing a bunch of mermaids singing “believe in yourself,” in the distance. Maybe your so tired of swimming that you have begun to hallucinate. Now THAT’s spirituality. That’s what drove me to finish writing this album.”

Das treibende "Sober Motel" feiert die Nüchternheit und das Gefühl eines klaren Kopfes. Die schöne Melodie-Führung besticht, auch ist das Stück inhaltlich von Klarheit geprägt: „Lots of water imagery on this record. And its suitable because this song is kind of a statement, celebrating sobriety. For the most part, I write my songs when I’m sober. So finding reason’s to celebrate a clear state of mind wasn’t difficult. There’s something so naked about it all.” "Sorry Ur Mad" plädiert dafür, sich aus der Umklammerung der Wut und des Grolls zu befreien.

Flucht ist ein häufiges Thema in den Songs, vom schmerzlichen "Marihuana" bis zur epischen Queer-Tragödie "Bad Biology" - aber sie hilft letztlich sehr wenig, und so arbeitet das Album seine eigene atheistische Religion heraus, um den Tag zu überstehen und das strahlenden Licht der Hoffnung zu sehen.

Dilly Dally leiden nicht unter Wahnvorstellungen, und wenn du denkst, dass das Festhalten an der Hoffnung in einer abgefuckten Welt naiv ist, ist es ihnen egal. Das Leben ist hart, Depressionen sind scheiße und die Straße kann brutal sein. Aber jede Nacht, wenn die Band auf die Bühne tritt, um diese Lieder zu singen, die alle in helles Licht getaucht sind, wird es sich sicher wie der Himmel anfühlen.


Tracklist “Heaven”:

1. I Feel Free

2. Doom

3. Believe

4. Sober Motel

5. Sorry Ur Mad

6. Marijuana

7. Pretty Cold

8. Bad Biology

9. Heaven


Dilly Dally Live:

03.10.2018 Berlin – Maze Club




Track by Track:

I Feel Free

This song is about getting the band back together. We almost broke up, well actually we did. I always thought that once the band started doing well, it would make all our problems go away and everyone would be happy. But instead, it sorta illuminated whatever dark energy had been lying around, and things just erupted on tour. In order to heal from that heartbreak, that feeling of loss... I was meditating a bunch. There was a vision i had when I was lying on my bed once of being a bird. Like a gorgeous avian creature that just flew around in a sky, hung out on cliffs and watched sunsets... In that moment, all my problems seemed so small. The pain just fell away...So the song I Feel Free - is just about asking my bandmates to let go of what ever it is thats been waying them down and just come be fly around the world with me instead. Don’t let the past hold you back from your dreams. Lets do this thing.

Doom

This song is about staying strong in the midst of... a shit ton of dark energy. While the band internally was falling apart, we went back across the ocean to America. Pre and then post election. It was like a wave of depression washed over the whole country - and I’m sensitive girl at the end of the day. This song is about preserving your spirit despite all odds. As a side note, while I was writing it, my roommate walked into my bedroom and told me about a shitty one night stand she had. The person had been disrespectful to her despite the fact she let them “go inside her” and told me with such conviction that her body was “sacred.” So largely thanks to that, the lyrics were finished.

Believe

This song was my baby. I was so obsessed with protecting it’s concept, almost to its demise. But the band saved it in the end. Last summer, I was DJing allot of 90s pop music written for little girls with bad self esteem- S Club 7, Spice Girls etc. The original concept for this song was to have a repetitive doom-y hook laced with painfully positive messages. I wanted to put the listener into a therapeutic trance, let’s say. My process is so spiritual, it was impossible to really tame these ideas. After trying a million different verses, bridges, intros, structures.... The band, yet again helped me pull it all together, especially Jimmy Tony (bassist) with his line at the end. And what was great was that we were all able to preserve the intimacy of the song. Just imagine being underwater, lost in the ocean somewhere, and faintly hearing a bunch of mermaids singing “believe in yourself,” in the distance. Maybe your so tired of swimming that you have begun to hallucinate. Now THAT’s spirituality. That’s what drove me to finish writing this album.

Sober Motel

Lots of water imagery on this record. And its suitable because this song is kind of a statement, celebrating sobriety. Something that isn’t expected of rock musicians. No, we are expected to get wasted every night. It’s assumed. But you never know what someone’s relationship is with the substance that can send so many people into a dangerous spiral. For the most part, I write my songs when I’m sober (otherwise I wouldn’t remember anything). So finding reason’s to celebrate a clear state of mind wasn’t difficult. There’s something so naked about it all.

Sorry Ur Mad

While on our previous album we celebrated the necessity of anger at times, this album steers very clear of that angsty nature. After going around the world and yelling on a stage every night, I just got tired of fighting. I hadn’t the energy anymore. This song is about letting go of a very unhealthy type of anger (built up resentment) that can create so much tension if you don’t deal with it. Let it go, put it to bed. Sometimes the universe steps in to remind you that you don’t have to control everything. You just have to let life happen to you, for the most part.

Marijuana

Everyday in 2017 I was writing music for this album. Somedays, it just felt impossible to push away all the depression, anger, & confusion I was feeling about the world from where I was sitting.... I was digging deep into some DIY kind of spirituality with no set of rules.... it felt like for the first time I was discovering how to make peace with those big grey cloudy question marks, that religion tries so hard to provide answers for. Instead of reading the bible or turning to someone else for guidance, I just turned inward, and played music alone in my room, with a foggy haze of smoke, and allot of distortion pedals. Without music, I don’t know how I would ever make peace with everything. Weed just helps me get to that place sometimes.

Pretty Cold

“This song’s a broken heart” - Pretty self explanatory I guess. Whenever my heart is broken romantically, I always feel the most beautiful. Like I’m a gorgeous actress in a classic movie. Walking by the ocean on a blustery day, with my head down, and a broken zipper. Just that sting, and that soreness. I wanted to quickly write a terrible poem about that fantasy which became this song.

Bad Biology

This song is meant to play out like a movie almost. An epic queer tragedy, that then ends in reincarnation or some kind of transgendered escape fantasy. It encapsulates the love/hate relationship I have with my gender, and therefor my body itself.

It starts off being about two queer, androgynous people who fall in love, and its all sexy. Then in verse 2 one of them starts to feel sad and frustrated with the relationship. They have a tramautic break up, (or the car violently crashes). So the song ends with a fantasy about taking “your body off”. Whether that means a surgical sex change or a ghost fantasy is taking place.... is really up to you i guess. Either way, its an escape fantasy of leaving ones body in order to be closer with someone you love.

Heaven

Not too complicated this one. Its a love song. About being depressed and falling in love with your best friend in order to escape the pain. I will spare you the messy details of what actually went down in the end. Because I wrote this when I was deeply in love. And we all know thats the best medication there is. The idea for this album to present the listener with a bunch of coping mechanisms, helpful tools, and self care advice to get through depression. The darkest energy I can think of is death. And often depression can lead people towards that place. I grew up atheist, and don’t understand really religion. So this is just an “alternate heaven” that i wanted to present people with.There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Your not alone in feeling this way, but you have to know, that there is hope.




Links:

Official Site: https://dillydally.lnk.to/web

Facebook: https://dillydally.lnk.to/fb

Twitter: https://dillydally.lnk.to/tw

Instagram: https://dillydally.lnk.to/ig

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