Spotlight On... LYLO

The hiatus is a terrifying prospect for any music fan: a heartbreaking, uncertain, but often necessary turning point that either sees your favourite band fade into obscurity or return stronger than they ever could have been before. For Glasgow three-piece LYLO, the latter is more than true as they boldly shed their chrysalis and emerge with the announcement of their third album Thoughts of Never – an offering sure to enthral those who waited for them on the other side.

The lush production from Joel Patchett (King Krule, MARINA) gives each of the ten tracks on this record an expensive sheen, affording the band’s incredible songwriting the star treatment it deserves. Vocalist Mitch Flynn sounds sublime, blending Blu Cantrell-era R'n'B with strong notes of The Weeknd and Sade-esque soul. The instrumentation from Justin Allan and Jack Seaton has evolved tremendously from the style of 2018’s Post Era, favouring an inviting ambience akin to 90s Annie Lennox over their previous affinity for the angular tropes of 80s new-wave and post-punk. To unpack this rich and adventurous new material, we catch up with Allan who gives us the lowdown ahead of its release.

When did the writing process for this album begin and what made you feel that a dedicated hiatus was required as opposed to a shorter break?
It’s hard to say exactly when it started – since we wrapped up the Post Era live shows in February 2020 we all had bits of songs and instrumentals that we had been chipping away at. I think we settled on around three or four from around that time that felt like a concise and honest body of work that inspired us enough to write more. Up until that point in 2020, we were very much a live band. We had spent two years touring and playing very regularly, especially later slots, that required a more dance-orientated set – we felt that we moulded ourselves into that role and whenever we tried to translate that sound in the studio, it didn’t really sit right with us. The hiatus wasn’t planned to be any length as such, it just kind of happened due to us growing as people and artists and not wanting to put out a record that didn’t feel right or come natural to us. We had to live our lives for a bit for it to come.

How did the physical distance between each of the band members, living across Glasgow and Berlin, affect the content of the record? Does distance make the heart grow fonder?
I think the latter is true in this instance. It was quite a difficult time because the three of us had lived together up until that point and were so used to each other's company and creative bond. Mitch was in Berlin and Jack and myself were living together in Glasgow hiding from the world like everyone else. We must have written countless things, some good, some not so good, but we all eventually settled and worked on each other’s songs that felt exciting and inspiring for us all. It opened up a way of working that we weren’t used to and kept us on our toes. I think we all surprised each other when we shared what we had been working on. The distance made us bigger fans of each other in some way.

Were you nervous about returning and if so, what were your concerns? And, alternatively, what excites you most about returning?
I think we are all just generally excited. We’ve always acted like we have to grow on people anyway and have never really had the experience of a large fan base that we need to appease. We’re not entirely confident that the people who loved the last record will love this one but I don’t think it will offend them (I hope).

It’s more about documenting where we are creatively right now and how the process of making the album was hugely positive for us. We were lucky enough to play as Cassandra Jenkins' live band for a couple of her European tours over the past couple of years and that was playing to bigger crowds than we’ve ever been used to. If it wasn’t for that I think the live experience would be completely daunting – it still is a little. There is also the realisation that you are releasing music into the ether more than ever, but we’re happy with it and it will always be there for people whenever they stumble across it. 

The album features a few collaborations; how did working with The Orielles’ Esmé Dee Hand-Halford and spoken word poet alore, come about?
We wanted more collaborators, voices for more dynamics, and to encourage others to express themselves on the record too. We know Esmé through touring with The Orielles in 2018 and are huge fans of them and especially Esmé’s voice. Hush developed an undeniable soulfulness to it and it made sense to the meaning of the song to have another persona portraying the voice going on inside the character’s head. alore is our friend Naya who’s a spoken word poet based in London. They have come to our shows in the past and we are such a fan of what they do. We tried our luck and asked if they would speak over an instrumental track we had. It’s turned out to be one of our favourites on the album and the whole lyrical content just fits so well with the rest of the record and helped shape a lot of it as a reference track.

A lot of records written during COVID times are, quite suffocatingly, categorised and defined in relation to that time. For us at The Skinny, this record captures a sense of the aftermath, the times we’re living in now, a period of recovery and unrest, of frustration and confusion, but also of hope and new beginnings – what kinds of feelings are you trying to encapsulate with this record?
Thank you, that’s refreshing to hear. Some of the songs were physically written in the COVID timeframe but they were meant to timelessly exist and relate to whatever. I think the theme of collaboration and connection is as prevalent in the process of recording the album as it is in the songs. The feeling of melancholia and stillness is probably translated most through the instrumentals – cinematic soundscapes that are very focused on a metropolis landscape giving space for Mitch to kind of ad-lib a hopeful soulless over it. A lot of the feelings conveyed weren’t really intentional, apart from expressing a vulnerability that we feel we didn’t quite catch before. I think that’s where some of the feelings conveyed really came out – there are a lot of soothing instrumentals that perhaps provided a comfort blanket in order to express that vulnerability.

What were some of the main influences for the soundscape and lyrical content you explore on this record? And where did that title come from?
We would listen back to what we had been working on after each day and watch films on mute to play our songs over – films such as Brian De Palma’s Body Double – and just treat it like it was a soundtrack. I think that inspired the flow and tracklisting of the record as you move through the themes of it. The soundscapes can be indulgent and hang in stillness which is maybe a testament to our creative patience and how we’ve been feeling with regards to releasing music through the past few years.

Thoughts of Never was a demo track that never made it onto this album. We loved it and after we finished tracking the whole album and the theme of it all had developed, it summed everything up so perfectly.

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Thoughts of Never is released on 10 May via El Rancho Records; Hush is out now