LongBeachCulture.org CenterStage Blog

by Sander Roscoe Wolff

Lili de la Mora will be performing with The Year Zero at {open} at 9 PM on Tuesday, January 29th. Sharing the bill is Katie The Pest, and Yellow Fever from Texas. On the 31st they’ll be playing at The Prospector with Forcefield On and Two Guns.

Over the course of several days, Lili and I talked about her many projects, including a collaboration with Belgian artist Arne Van Petegem (aka Styrofoam) which will see a Spring release on the Nettwerk label, plans for a new instrumental group called “The Fragile Shell of the Psychic Temple of the Holy Kiss,” and her ongoing work with Rodney Sellars in The Year Zero.

Her new CD release, titled Eleven Continents, is a collaboration with Ryan Francesconi (aka RF). Recorded and mixed by long-time musical cohort Ken Negrete, it features amazingly focused acoustic guitar, harp from Joanna Newsom, strings, horns, and Lili’s beautiful, gentle singing. I asked her first about the title of the CD.

Lili: My birthday is 1/11, which I guess started my obsession with the number eleven, hence Eleven Continents. I was thinking of the recognized ones, a few legendary ones no longer with us, and some imaginary worlds I travel to, ones yet to be discovered.

Sander: How many continents have you visited?

Lili: Just this one. After March it will be 2. We booked the flights yesterday. We’re leaving on March 11th for Japan.

Sander: Wow, that’s super exciting. Who is going?

Lili: Myself, and Ryan (RF). We will be playing 6 or 7 shows in 10 days. I’m really excited. We will be traveling to at least 5 cities. Tokyo is the first stop. Our label in Japan, P-Vine, is based there. Then Nagoya, Kyoto, and Osaka so far. I’d better start working on learning some of the language!

Sander: Can you talk about how the album project came together?

Lili: Well, Ryan Francesconi and I became friends online first. We both liked each other’s music, and he asked if I would like to collaborate on a song with him. That pretty much got the ball rolling.

I sent him a few rough recordings of some of my acoustic songs and he sent me some acoustic guitar pieces he had written for me to write lyrics and melodies to. A lot of times we were both listening from our respective homes, speaking on AIM, and pressing play at the same time. [laughs] It was a lot of fun. Some of the songs evolved from some of our conversations. Ryan is very hard working and is involved in all aspects of his music. This was very inspiring to me. When we had enough songs he came to Long Beach to meet me and my friends Ken and Fabiola.

Sander: Where did he come from?

Lili: He lives in Berkeley. Ryan came down to Long Beach and recorded his guitar parts, and then I worked with Ken on the vocals. Fabiola, his wife and partner in the band Familiar Trees, sang some harmonies.

Sander: When Ryan came down, had any recording been done?

Lili: No. We started with his guitar tracks. Well then it was a matter of finishing up the songs. There was a lot of file sharing.

Sander: Did you have a moment, a realization, that things were coming together really well?

Lili: Well, that was mostly the initial spark of meeting and writing together. The rest was a year long process of finishing up the songs and having other musicians add their magic to the mix. Being able to have the strings and especially the harp was a dream come true for me.

Sander: How did that come about?

Lili: I mentioned that I wanted harp on some of the songs and Ryan said he knew a few. He mentioned that he knew Joanna and, since I love her music, I was overjoyed when she agreed to play on a few of the tracks. Ryan drove up to her home to record her ideas.

[Editor’s Note: At this point we are joined by Ryan Francesconi, Lili’s collaborator on Eleven Continents.]

Lili: Ryan has toured Japan a few times but, like I was saying earlier, it will be my first time there.

Ryan: Yah, that will be funny. Lili is going to have so much fun.

Lili: Yup, I’ll be like a little kid in a toy store.

Ryan: I have some dear friends there, so we will have a blast. I love going there. Tokyo is insane. Generally, a Japan tour means Tokyo, Nagoya, Kyoto, and Osaka. I’m hoping to add a small city somewhere too in the mountains so we can go to an onsen (japanese natural hotspring).

Lili: We did our first show last year in sf.

Ryan: It was at this nice place in SF called the Poleng Lounge as part of this Soundscapes Festival.

Sander: Ryan, give me your 411.

Ryan: I play Bulgarian music, jazz, indie stuff like with Lili, electronic stuff as RF, chamber music, and I play with Joanna Newsom for all of her shows, and arrange for her. This last year, I’ve been touring with Joanna for 9 out of 12 months, so that has taken up a lot of time.

I have a software consulting business as well, and I have a company that sells creative music software that I wrote… just some nonsense that makes weird sounds and destroys samples. Good for live freaking out.

I’ve known, since I was 12, exactly what I wanted to do. I went to Calarts for 6 years: BFA is guitar/composition, MFA is composition/new media… so yeah, very trained – which accounts for the “focus” you mentioned. I need Lili to offset my over-training. Also, songwriting is a different skill, and it’s nice for me to have help in that area.

Lili: I’ve never had any formal training so, thankfully for me, I’ve always come across other musicians that I could collaborate with that could help me realize my ideas.

Sander: One thing I noticed when listening to the album was that the lyrics seemed thematic to me, as if there’s a long line running through the songs… Maybe ideas about movement toward, or away. Was that a happy accident of psychology, of personality?

Ryan: She’s just lazy, so she recycled lyrics. [laughs] We did keep some themes, both musicially and lyrically. You’ll notice that Lifetime and Fences are actually the same song, and there are subtle ties that way. I remember some times when Lili and I were writing lyric things over Instant Messanger, even. Some of the lyrics are old, though, but I think Lili’s lyrics have that same quality most of the time: wishy washy cloud this bird skies and grass stuff, and so on, ‘cause she doesn’t drive. She just kinda wanders around. [Laughs]

Lili: Yeah, I’m a daydreamer.

[Editor’s Note: At this point Ryan left the conversation]

Sander: Lili, was your family musical?

Lili: Not my immediate family. My grandmother played piano but died when my mom was 9. I never had the pleasure of making her acquaintance. I remember visiting my grandfather when i was like 4 or 5 … my uncles always had their friends over to play music. But my uncles played everything under the sun, self taught, like piano, guitar, banjo, fiddle. I remember liking it. I didn’t start writing music to share with others till I was about 23 or so.

I went through a lot of painful things when I was little and as a young adult, but living through that is what keeps me so optimistic. I mean it puts all my daily trials and tribulations in perspective. I have a pretty good life, and that I think made the journey worth it.

My parents and I didn’t understand each other much when i was growing up. Actually, being a young parent wasn’t half as hard as growing up a Jehovah’s Witness. So there you have it: The source of all my hang ups. [laughs] It’s a very dry religion, joyless, and slightly cultish. I asked way too many questions. It made me a very split person. When I was at home there was really no room to question. After a while, I just knew that questions weren’t encouraged, but I was always interested in other religions.

I ran away from home at 14. I visited other churches, then. They were fascinating to me, all the rituals, although some of the mystery was already gone because, well, you know I grew up knowing there was no Santa and that most Christian holidays and traditions could be traced to older pagan rituals. Later , much later, I explored eastern religions, and even Wicca. I guess I became a bit of a church hopper, just for the experience, to know what went on in there, but I’m mostly agnostic. I stay open minded. I take it in as it unfolds before me.

I used to feel somewhat victimized by organized religion. I mean, wow, the story is deep and intense but, like I said, I feel like I’ve lived many lives and they were all pretty dramatic ‘till maybe in my 20′s when I began to take steps to heal myself by taking responsibility for how I affect others and what I bring into my life. My life really changed.

Now I see that growing up the way I did gave me many interesting tools to use on my journey. I like my life, right now especially. There are so many wonderful people in my life right now.

Sander: I heard in the lyrics of 11 Continents that there’s a lot of traveling, movement toward something.

Lili: Yes, a lot of those songs are affirmations. I am an uncurable (sic) daydreamer and, since I was a little kid, I loved looking around, up at the sky, at the trees, birds and, when I did that, it was as if my life acquired a timeless feel to it. It helped me to smile, no matter what was going on. it was calming. It’s hard to talk about these things without sounding really nutty. [laughs]

I guess one of the biggest lessons I learned was that this is what I needed to feel centered, and to be more present so, in a sense, being a daydreamer helped me to learn how to be more focused. [laughs] I think that this is one of the most valuable gift you can give to the world: To learn how to be comfortable in your own skin and then pass that along to your kids. Being observant helped me do that.

That feeling I get from going for a walk and looking at trees, or sitting by the water, that is how I like feeling, so I try to carry that in me, in my interactions with others. Plus, I am super curious and I really do feel like this is my time to venture out and explore the world a bit more. I like being in my 30′s. I feel so much more calm then I did in my 20′s.

A lot of the songs I’ve written talk about being in the present. I guess I wanted to encourage others, as well as myself, to play, explore inside as well as outside. [We have] one life (as far as I know). Let’s live it to the fullest. Forgive yourself, and then forgiving others is not really an issue. I remember thinking when I was younger, “if I can just live through this, everything else will be a piece of cake.” So I am grateful that I made it through without being overtaken by cynicism. I’ve kept my joy alive. I think we all have the potential to be wonderful beings.

Sander: I was looking at The Year Zero’s website, and the artwork there created by guitarist/singer Rodney Sellars really impressed me. It seems fully realized, cohesive.

Lili: The whole project feels like that. The music for me is very evocative, like the story I told about the grape bubblegum kiss in the rain. When I sing these songs I get a very nice feeling of timelessness. It all fits together.

Sander: Can you talk a bit about your lyrics… They seem like a lovely mix of dreams, flights of fancy, and observations

Lili: Well, that is what they are I guess: Musings about life, other life forms. The whole idea behind the year zero is to write songs that evoke that feeling of timelessness. These days it seems we all run around so much that there is no time to stop and reassess our lives, or if there might be some other direction we might like to go in, so the year zero is exactly that: A day of rest where it all stops, and starts back up at the beginning. Another opportunity to start anew, refreshed. I think from that place you make better decisions. Some of our songs are about war and, hopefully, give a bit of encouragement towards change, the idea that we can change outdated behaviors and patterns and begin again.

Sander: So, you still embrace optimism, even though it seems almost unfashionable these days?

Lili: Yeah, it’s a much better way to face the day. [laughs] As you can see from the artwork, Rodney loves technology, old ships, and buildings. It’s not that I picture or advocate a “back to nature” type world where there are no machines or modern advances, but just wish the focus of technological advances would shift away from building war machines and move towards creating a more pleasurable experience and a higher quality of life for us all. We both love retro futuristic landscapes, old with new. Who knows what would survive if we everything collapsed!

Sander: Do you see these ideas as a model with which a new future can be created, or an abstracted ideal?

Lili: Definitely, I believe if we speak it, sing it then, in a way, that alternate future is closer to becoming a reality. I believe in the goodness of people because I see examples of it everyday, but we’ve become so isolated that I believe we forget at times how we all have similar hopes, fears, and dreams.

I get down sometimes too. I have such wonderful friends, though, and my family is amazing, so I never stay down for too long. There is so much beauty around me. Maybe it will all go one day, in my time or my kids’ time and, because that is one of the possibilities that exists, I want to enjoy myself and experience as much of this world as I can. For me the true treasures are the people I meet, people that let me inside their hearts, share of their time and experiences with me.

I am drawn to work with people that want to build these little song capsules that you can step into and feel your self expand, wonder. I want people to wonder, be filled with wonder, maybe be inspired to create as well.

The first poet that ever moved me, when I was like 16, was Kahlil Gibran. The whole idea of suffering being like a tool that carves deep in your heart so that you can experience or hold more joy. Before that, I had no idea what to do with a lot of the experiences I had had, but that made so much sense. It’s a depth of feeling I acquired.

You know what, Sander? I love Long Beach. I mean, yeah, there way more exotic places, and we are in dire of need of cleaner beaches and a few more green spaces. Our city hall has more than a few rats but, all in all, to me this city is so wonderful, especially down here close to the water. And there is a light, a beautiful silvery light, that I’ve only seen here. At sundown there is beautiful orange yellow glow that hits the palm trees that just knocks me out, and it is so welcoming.

I met a couple that moved to Long Beach not that long ago and they were telling me how welcoming everyone here was to them. It’s nice to hear from visitors how the city strikes them. I still want to visit so many places, but Long Beach will always have a very special place in my heart. It truly feels like home to me.