Let’s read some books that got banned: Alex Lilly issues Banned Book Week statement to go with “Pure Drivel,” her single on the subject.

See Lilly’s crew boogie with books in Berlin library; Contributors include Inara George (The Bird and The Bee), Griffin Goldsmith (Dawes).

 

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Alex Lilly as photographed by Pasqual Amade

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Alex Lilly | In The Press

“Alex Lilly’s songs keep their cool.” — The New York Times

“Alex Lilly is the genuine article.” — FLOOD

“Pretty freaking awesome.” —  FADER

“Alex Lilly is spellbinding. Album of The Week” — LA Weekly

“Alex Lilly steps into the spotlight.” — Flaunt

“Three-minute modern art pieces.” — Buzz Bands

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PLAY, POST & SHARE

Alex Lilly | “Pure Drivel”

[VIDEO]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQVtzFhSK9o

[STREAM]: https://Fanatic.lnk.to/AlexLilly-PureDrivel

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According to The New York Public Library, since 1982, libraries across the United States have observed Banned Books Week, a time to highlight titles that were targeted for removal from schools and libraries. In 2022, there has been a particularly aggressive wave of bans and challenges across America.

The American Library Association, which pioneered Banned Books Week, has reported a record amount of books banned in recent years—many of which center people of color and LGBTQ+ voices.

Alex Lilly’s current single “Pure Drivel,” taken from her upcoming album Repetition Is A Sin (Oct. 21, Release Me Records) addresses the subject in song, in which she sings “I know you canceled all your plans, so come over, let’s read some books that got banned.”

The choreographed video for the tune, filmed in and around a Berlin library, is streaming now. Lilly felt there was no better time than during Banned Books Week to use the song and its video to draw attention to banned books. Her full statement can be read below.

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Alex Lilly | Banned Books Week Statement

“There’s been an uptick in book banning lately.  And yes, the usual suspects are at it again, though there are some new players too.

“You’d think living in a time where hard-core pornography exists at the click of a button, there’d be bigger fish to fry. But it’s not the smut that really scares these book-banners — it’s indoctrination. And I think despite the reasons given (reasons ranging from profanity to violence to sexual orientation), I think at its core, it’s always been a fear of indoctrination. You’ll become a communist if you read ‘Animal Farm,’ a junkie if you read ‘Naked Lunch’ and a slut if you read ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover.’

“But then it’s all too absurdly reasonable — many of the people at the center of this book-banning business are people who themselves were indoctrinated by a book. These good Christians know firsthand just how powerful stories can be. But unlike their particular book, a regular old book doesn’t threaten or make promises. There are no transactions here. A novel is a window onto another world, which you’re free to interpret. And if you don’t like what you read, you can close it at any time without fear of consequence.

“The current consternation in book-banning circles hovers around a book’s presumed power to render people gay or transgender. We see this with the pulling of ‘Gender Queer’ and other similar titles. And from a different corner of society we see calls to ban ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ due to racist characters issuing forth racist slurs — the idea being that depictions of racism might desensitize certain minds, making them more prone to racist ideologies and behaviors.

“In the past, banning for this reason was even extended to black authors (James Baldwin and Toni Morrison included.) These anti-lit crusaders certainly have an appreciation for irony! The common thread among these disparate groups of book-banners, in my humble opinion, seems to be a total underestimation of the human mind and spirit. If people are this confused and impressionable, then books are the least and last of their troubles.

“The book-banning bunch is right that books are powerful. But they’re wrong about the nature of this power. Reading a book can certainly transform your perspective but transformation is not dangerous. They’ve made synonymous two words, transformation and indoctrination, when they couldn’t be more different. Transformation is based on discovery. Indoctrination is based on surrender. Here’s that irony again — those indoctrinated themselves are paranoid about indoctrination. And they’re going after the most oppressive and abusive systems of control on Earth — libraries!

“‘Free the nipple’ was shouted around for a while. Can we bring back ‘Free the mind!?’ It’s not to say there aren’t some unwanted consequences to freedom. There’s no perfect solution. But when you look through the annals of history, you see violence and trouble mostly in pens, not open pastures. The darkest days of history coincide always with intellectual freedoms being repressed. So a mind allowed to wander, to discover, to wonder. Is that really the scariest thing? Oh but wait, what about all those mobs of murderous philosophers!?” — Alex Lilly

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Alex Lilly | Live

Fri., Oct. 21, 2022: Los Angeles, CA @ Gold-Diggers

Repetition Is A Sin (Record Release Show) | On Sale Now

w/ Special Guests: The Living Sisters

(feat. Inara George, Eleni Mandell, Alex Lilly, and Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond)

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Alex Lilly

Repetition Is A Sin

(Release Me Records)

Oct. 21, 2022 

 

Track Listing:

01. Pure Drivel (STREAM | VIDEO)

02. Frank (STREAM)

03. I’m Getting Better At Falling In Love

04. Spirit

05. Rosalind

06. Delight Me

07. Human

08. Melinda

09. Afternoon In Bloom

10. Bugs Bunny

11. Built For Chaos

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Alex Lilly | About

Repetition is a sin — is it a mantra? A judgment? A fact?
 
Repetition Is A Sin is the title of the upcoming second album by Alex Lilly.
 
Repetition Is A Sin is also a cliffhanger! Will Lilly live up to the challenge she’s issued to herself following the hearty praise for her 2019 debut 2% Milk?
 
“Everything about this debut album by Alex Lilly is spellbinding,” said L.A. Weekly. “Pretty freaking awesome” and “the genuine article” wrote The FADER and FLOOD. NPR’s Los Angeles affiliate KCRW called 2% Milk “a pleasure” and Jon Pareles wrote in The New York Times that Lilly’s songs deliver “structural and emotional complexity with deceptive nonchalance.”
 
Lilly’s talents are on point for other artists, as well. Her co-write of “I Like Girls” for jazz vocalist Samantha Sidley (“Now she’s gluing garden gnomes to geodesic domes, people call it junk, I call it art”) spring boarded that record to a “Top 10 Album of The Year” nod from the Los Angeles Times.
 
Spoiler alert!
 
Lilly’s latest fulfills the promises she made with her first album and much more.
 
First, Repetition Is A Sin is funny! Conversational and free, it is the sound of self-actualization. Lilly’s thoughtful and intelligent wordplay, unexpected and exhilarating production touches, and emotional vulnerability are pure joy.
 
Contrasting this with Lilly’s awesome sense of humor, it is also pure power!
 
And so, with the album opener and first single “Pure Drivel,” Lilly issues an anthem and rebel yell for...  librarians! Because, of course.
 
“I know you canceled all your plans
So come over let’s read some books that got banned mama”
 
“I wanted to write a stay-in date night about reading — a nerdy booty call,” she says. “I was in a book club over the pandemic, which was interesting as we mostly just drank and smoked and never finished a single book.” Lilly then quickly adds, “I’m not proud of this!”
 
Lilly spent part of her pre-solo career touring as part of Beck’s band and he attended Lilly’s book club to read the first chapter of “Moby Dick.”
 
“Because we never finished it, I can only confirm that the first half of ‘Moby Dick’ is great,” she jokes.
 
What Lilly can confirm absolutely is that Repetition Is A Sin “feels emotionally brighter and more jewel-toned than 2% Milk.”
 
The trifecta of tunes that open Repetition Is A Sin include “Frank,” in which Lilly mentions her closest friends by name while questioning if she will get to party with them in the afterlife.
 
“I don’t wanna go to heaven
Cuz none of my friends will be there
No one will be
Getting plastered with me
In the air”
 
“These are all real people mentioned in the song except for Frank,” Lilly explains. “I don’t know who he is. Maybe I will someday.”
 
The many character-driven songs on the album were partially inspired by the pandemic.
 
“Being isolated from people for a bit spurred me on,” Lilly says. “I had a hobby for a while where I was commissioned to write theme songs for humans, including this spectacularly talented and cute tap dancer living in Los Angeles.”
 
That project inspired the album’s “Melinda.” “Well if I ever turn gay, let’s go, If you ever stop being straight, Well let me know,” Lilly sings.
 
“It was a lot of fun and I continued the idea of song portraits for several other tracks on this record, almost like creating my own company that includes friends (“Frank”), movie stars (“Rosalind”), a cartoon character’s alter ego (“Bugs Bunny”), my grandma (“Spirit”), and Frank, the made-up drunk.”
 
The album’s most moving tune is next, a love song like no other. It is an all or nothing moment for Lilly. “I’m Getting Better At Falling In Love” is confessional, vulnerable, optimistic, and hopeful.
 
And of course, hilarious:
 
“I’m getting better at falling in love
I’m getting so good, gotta mind to do it full-time
Love muscles getting buff
Now it’s all that I can do”
 
“I’m Getting Better at Falling in Love” is a happy love song,” Lilly says. “It’s an anomaly for me.”
 
It’s a tune destined to become some couple’s “our song.” So lovey-dovey, but the humor of it all is still just within arm’s reach.
 
Lilly invokes “Seinfeld” character George Costanza to make a point about where she’s coming from on this record, asking, “Do you know the episode where George decides to do the opposite of everything he usually does just to see what difference it makes in his life? I could keep making mistakes, but they had to be new ones. Musically and personally. Repetition is a sin.”
 
On the musical tip, Lilly says, “My recording mindset was very different than it had been in the past. This time, the sounds are dialed in so well, but the feeling is loose.”
 
To make this happen, on the recommendation of friend and fellow musical risk-taker, John Vanderslice, Lilly worked extensively with engineer James Riotto to create Repetition Is A Sin.
 
“We went deep into harnessing the sounds of old oscillators and drum machines, and then syncing them up using an interface. This was the kind of wizardry I was after!
 
“It sounded so good off the bat that it didn’t need to be perfect, which is a pretty swift departure from my normal process. Previously, I felt like I had been an actor in a movie, where I could rely more on editing. Now, I was actor in a play, and had to commit to the emotional arc of an entire take.”
 
Lilly’s movie vs. play analogy is about the best description of this record yet. Unlike a film that you’ve already seen, each listen to Repetition Is A Sin contains the tension of a unique performance. It’s a cliffhanger!
 
Repetition Is A Sin, the second solo album by Alex Lilly, arrives October 21, 2022 via Release Me Records, preceded by the single “Pure Drivel,” out now.
 
Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.
 
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Alex Lilly | Links
 
ASSETS : WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : RELEASE ME RECORDS
 
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Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact
 
WEBSITE : FACEBOOK : TWITTER : INSTAGRAM : YOUTUBE : SOUNDCLOUD : SPOTIFY : BLOG : E-MAIL