Helena Deland
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Helena Deland
After the French composer Lili Boulanger’s untimely death, her sister Nadia actualized the ultimate sororal pact by devoting her life to spreading the legacy of her younger sister’s musical genius. It was when Deland’s friend Lylz arranged a concert of the late sisters’ compositions a century later that Deland first heard the Boulangers’ music and learned of their immortal devotion to one another. The tone was set, then, for Deland’s epic homage to her friendship with Lylz: a double-edged promise to sisterhood and to the mirthless pursuit of recognition. From a history hopeful in its hauntedness springs “Lylz”: an ode to a friendship born out of mutual esteem and fanned by the flames of worldly dissatisfaction. Recorded with Jake Portrait in his Greenpoint studio, the song playfully unites lush, ominous sounds with innocent yet macabre lyrics, like a candlelit murder mystery in which an unconditional alliance with another player is felt in the warmth of a glance. “Lylz” pens out in loopy lapis cursive the delicate line between a lust to be witnessed, and the buoyant, aching forever-after of female friendship.
¨Lylz¨ is Deland’s first release since her 2018 series of EPs entitled “Altogether Unaccompanied”, a two-year period during which she toured with Weyes Blood and Connan Mockasin, amongst others, opened for Iggy Pop in Paris and collaborated with JPEGMAFIA.