Tannersville by Lily Vakili of Vakili Band

I didn’t plan to put out a solo EP. After the release of Honey (Vakili Band’s 3rd studio album), my mind was on the next band album and I was in the process of lining up a selection of songs when the opportunity to open on the John Douglas tour came along.

The prospect felt both completely new and a return home. Alone is how I write my songs and I started out as a solo performer (and released two solo albums before forming the band). Still, performing alone is a very different mindspace, discipline and art.

Serendipitous connections led me to Second Take Sound and the collaboration with blues musician, studio engineer and poet, Reed Turchi, who also plays a mean slide guitar on a few of the songs. In the quiet of a studio in the heart of Manhattan, we worked out a way to capture the storytelling of the songs as simply as possible. Reed made it feel natural to record the songs "live", without a click track, just me and my Gibson.

Here's what co-producer Reed Turchi has to say about all this:

“When Lily first approached me about working on this EP I was excited about the challenge of presenting her story-telling singing & idiosyncratic guitar playing in a stripped-down, but fully immersive way.

Capturing compelling performances was our priority, and from a technical standpoint I knew my task would be to record these songs in a way that was simultaneously intimate and built for performance.

Early on Lily mentioned the songs should have a "late night troubadour playing on the porch" feeling, and I tried to create a similar environment in the studio: a vocal mic able to pick up the intricacies of her voice, low-lights, a partitioned section of the room, and the electric guitar amplifier isolated away so we could build everything around her voice. Along with this "nocturnal troubadour" vibe, references that came to mind were the Jason Molina's solo-demos for Magnolia Electric Co. (especially the song "Farewell Transmission"), along with Jim James's album "Tribute To" (specifically "My Sweet Lord"). In my ear both of those albums succeed because of the emotion and character of the voice, and accompaniment of guitar treated as not just play-along rhythm but as a whole source of sonic sculpting, a six-string soundscape for the voice to live in.

After recording and reviewing the "keeper takes" of each song, Lily asked if I would play some guitar in a few spots, and I did my best to offer snippets of tone and texture as counterpoint, hopefully aiding the dramatic turns of each song's narrative and structure. The end result is, I believe, an extremely evocative and compelling EP that showcase Lily's range of talents as a solo performer: her songs, her voice, her guitar, and her ways of inhabiting the worlds she creates.

I'm looking forward to hearing how these songs develop along her solo tour, and know her next solo album and band album will be informed and influenced by the sounds and production we shared in the creation of this EP.”

"The Patti Smith Group vibe is strong with the Vakili Band, both in the straight ahead rock n’ roll fire and passionate street poet vibes, and we’ll take that over ironic detachment and empty theatrics any day of the week.” – Postcard Elba

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