Month: May 2017

A year ago, Lizzy Lehman and her band Carry Illinois were reeling from the loss of close friend John Winsor, the group’s bassist, who took his own life in March 2016. Paralyzed with grief, Lehman spent weeks in a state of disbelief, “not able to do much of anything,” haunted with questions. How could this have happened? Winsor and Lehman met while playing in another band, the Blackwells, and grew closer when John started playing in Carry Illinois—close enough for Lizzy to refer to John as a “surrogate brother in a way.” Although Lehman struggled to find the right therapist to help her cope with John’s death, the fog of her grief cleared enough for her to begin working through her emotions by writing new songs.

“When I was able to start processing,” Lehman says, “this was what came out…. I absolutely knew that he never would have wanted me to stop playing or writing.”

Despite some uncertainty about how to move forward without John, the band started to rehearse again, and Lehman eventually brought her collection of personal, raw songs, to the group—Rudy Villarreal, Darwin Smith, Andrew Pressman, and Derek Morris. “Because we had shared this deeply sad experience together, they just understood,” she says. After deciding to record the new songs in a studio, the band ambitiously contacted producer John Congleton. Flattered, but completely booked, Congleton referred Carry Illinois to producer and musician John Vanderslice, who runs Tiny Telephone studio in Oakland. Vanderslice has a reputation as a studio whiz and has worked with a slate of well-known artists, including Spoon and St. Vincent.

Spending a week or so holed up together in the studio solidified a new level of trust and camaraderie for Carry Illinois. “We were really working as a team,” Lehman comments, adding that the sessions felt “less rushed” than ever before. The result, a new EP called Garage Sale emphasizes mellow keys and guitar arrangements centered around Lehman’s wavering, pensive vocals. On the record’s strengths, Lehman says “it’s the truest songwriting [she’s] done.”

A year removed from Winsor’s death, Lehman focuses on a new question: “How do I keep his memory going through my music?” Although the songs on Garage Sale chronicle Lehman’s personal experience with trauma, she hopes the songs are universally accessible and reach out to anyone processing a painful experience. She cites one of her ultimate goals as “being able to connect to people on a really human level with music.”

‘Garage Sale,’ the new album from Carry Illinois, is a testament to the human experience. It’s a tour-de-force of emotion and takes you on an emotional journey with the band. For singer/songwriter Lizzy Lehman, losing a bandmate last year was a paralyzing experience, but writing new music gave her hope.

She said, “I took some songwriting workshops about using songwriting as truth-telling” and felt a switch in herself. She said that the class made her realize the importance of writing about her genuine experiences because “that’s the stuff that people really connect to.” To draw on the tragedy the band faced, ‘Garage Sale’ became therapy.

Despite the surrounding circumstances, the album became an expression of hope. The songs life you up rather than depress and each one feels like a new experience. The album has so many different influences from vintage college-rock mettle to a little lush AOR that it’s impossible to get bored. Take “Years to Come,” which plays midway through the album and catches a current of ringing new-wave guitars, marching choral drums, and Brill Building harmonies: It’s a defiant gesture though relatively unadorned.

By partnering with admired producer John Vanderslice, the band took a raw approach, focusing on emotion and instrumental nuance. Lehman described her experience saying, “I think John, immediately when he heard the music, knew making sure the vocals were right up front and the lyrics could be heard was top priority, and made me super confident recording with him.”

But Vanderslice defers credit entirely to the band. He said he mostly tried to stay out of the way and just capture the energy. He even went as far as to say, “The band was so good I didn’t want to impose a production style.”

With top-tier production, raw emotion, and exciting nuanced tracks, Garage Sale is a memorable album about love and loss. It’s a ode to recovery and moving forward — a true inspirational ballad.

Album out: May 12

Rate: 9/10

— Lou Flesh

Austin-based indie group Carry Illinois is making music for the right reasons. In the wake of a personal tragedy, the band set to work on a six-song EP, their third major release, that explores issues surrounding death and mourning as a way of coping with loss. At its core, Garage Sale is a very personal collection of well-constructed, well-produced, and well-performed indie rock songs. They’re not busy, clunky affairs; the songs are clean and pared down, a move that elegantly frames singer Lizzy Lehman’s poetic and touching lyrics. The songs feel like little glimpses into the life of a person who’s growing in the wake of a tragedy, the album has an emotional narrative that gives new depth and meaning to the songs. Carry Illinois is making music for the right reasons, and that sort of honesty and transparency makes its way into the band’s sound, to great effect. The band stopped by Studio 1A to gives us a preview of the album, which comes out next week. Check it out below!

– James Parker