Lilies on Mars - AGO (2015)

Following the lead single 'Dancing Star' co-produced with Tom Furse of The Horrors, described by Thump as "the perfect cosmic jam", Lilies on Mars announce their full length album ' GO', due for release by Lady Sometimes Records via Cargo Records on 25th September 2015. Born and raised in Sardinia, a magical island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, a place that recalls mystical legends and the strength of a population that has fought throughout history to keep traditions alive and never be fully conquered, Lisa and Marina moved to London 13 years ago. Some time later Lilies on Mars emerged, the result of many long nights spent listening to music and jamming with every imaginable instrument at their home studio in Hackney, from guitars to vintage organs, synthesizers, effects and drum machines. The contrast of living between these two places has had a profound effect on Lilies on Mars' music. It became a way to navigate their experience, gently incorporating all the information that inspired them, becoming notes and melodies but more precisely a sound. Delicate, surreal and sometimes disturbing, like a lily growing on a red planet. This is the imagery within which they are suspended, where time does not exist. Collaborations with Italian pop experimentalist Franco Battiato also dramatically influenced and inspired the project in its early stages. Lisa and Marina began writing ' GO' immediately after returning from an extensive tour of Europe and America. Filled with inspiration, excitement and with overwhelming changes in their lives post tour, they searched for shelter at Lisa's beach house in Sardinia. Here they set up a studio and found the perfect space and freedom needed to create and experiment with new sounds. All songs on ' GO' were written from edited improvisations and immediately recorded, whilst post production is also a key element in the whole creative process. Retro-futurist, psychedelic and cosmic pop elements are accentuated on this record. At times uplifting, at times drone- and Kraut-like. They are strongly influenced by primitive electronic experimentalists and pioneers such as Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram of The BBC Radiophonic Workshop. The title ' GO' symbolises the retro-futurist concept; without context the word becomes abstract and helps to weave together the past and future (AGO also means needle in Italian). It can be read as AGO as used in story telling of times 'long ago' or as A GO, as if giving a go at something new in the future. Equally, the lines of Lisa and Marina's distorted silhouettes on both album cover artwork and 'Dancing Star' video, inspired by Rutt-Etra-Izer, provides a visual representation. "'Dancing Star' is a pulsing, sensual piece of ethereal synth pop with dreamy, trippy textures created with vintage analogue equipment including space echo (just like King Tubby!), ancient, dusty organs and the duo's lysergic vocal tones..." Louder Than War. "Lilies on Mars' 'Dancing Star' Is the Perfect Cosmic Pop Jam..." Thump . 'Dancing Star' is a blissfully kissed slice of cruise controlling Kosmiche über-pop, sending forth love notes from an unspecified solar outpost through the galactic slipstreams on vapour trailing ice cream vans." God Is In The TV. "Lilies on Mars are two very talented girls, I really love this song."