Lys Guillorn

Artist Information

Biography

Lys Guillorn is a singer/songwriter based in New Haven, Connecticut. She is of the same musical school as Laura Veirs, and Kristin Hersh, with a little Emmylou Harris thrown in: dreamy, lyric-driven, melodically interesting, and undefinable.

Live sound is solo on electric or acoustic guitar, focusing on lyrics and intricate guitar work, or with full band, adding a little more crunch.

Guillorn has opened for artists including: Laura Cantrell, Amy Rigby, Scout Niblett, The Handsome Family, and Nora O'Connor.

Guillorn is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter whose eponymous debut CD was released in 2003, receiving international radio airplay and notice in indie press. The CD was produced and engineered by Jeff Feuerzeig (best known as director of the films "Half Japanese: The Band That Would be King" and "The Devil and Daniel Johnston"). Feuerzeig enlisted guests Stanley Demeski (Luna, Feelies), Brenda Sauter (Feelies), Dean Wareham (Luna, Galaxie 500), Robert Quine (Voidoids, Lou Reed, Tom Waits) and Glenn Mercer (Feelies, Wake Ooloo).

In the spring of 2006, Guillorn released the "Three Songs" EP; a trio of intricately arranged, original home-recorded tracks, packaged in a hand-letterpress printed cover.

Guillorn's most recent effort, "Wayward Children", pulls together her releases on compilations from various small indie labels over the last several years, including originals, covers of Skip Spence, old English ballads, fragments, and other miscellany.

She is currently working on a CD of new material at Dirt Floor Studios, Chester, CT.

"Guillorn's lonesome, stark music doesn't just conjure the Velvet Underground but serves as a rallying point for other Velvets fans to contribute (the late great Robert Quine, Luna, Feelies). She's no Nico clone though-think more of the lovely third VU album." -- The Village Voice

Instrumentation

Lys Guillorn - Vocals, Guitar, organ, mandolin, Lap Steel, ukulele, bells
Peter Riccio - Drums
Michael Guillorn - Bass

Discography

Lys Guillorn - Wayward Children (CD - March 2009 Little Cowgirl Records)
Lys Guillorn - Three Songs (CD EP - March 2006 Little Cowgirl Records)
Lys Guillorn - s/t (CD - 2003 Little Cowgirl Records)

Select comps/other:
"How Many, How Fast?" Not Before My Time (Golden Microphone, 2010)
"Sixteen Reasons", Happy Sweet Sixteen Carrot Top Records, (Oct. 2008)
"St. Augustine", Dream magazine comp issue 8
"(I Can't Help You) I'm Falling Too" Homebreaker, Skeeter Davis tribute (Sanitary Records, Oct., 2006)
"You Love to Fail", It's Meaningless, Magnetic Fields tribute SCTAS zine, September 2005)
"Banks of the Ohio" (traditional, on Ball of Wax zine comp #1, August 2005)

Official Website

http://www.lysguillorn.com

Links

• Facebook
• Last.fm
• MySpace
• Twitter
• Solo Electric Video on Youtube
• Live Band Video Taken by Fan on Youtube

Audio

• Steel Pier
  Listen  
• Little Wren
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• When I Was a Tiger Lily
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• My Lullaby
  Listen  
• Counter Productive
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• Sleep Tight Amelia (demo)
  Listen  

Lyrics

• Steel Pier
• When I Was a Tiger Lily

Video

Photo Gallery

Press

• Ear Might: Lys Guillorn Is Determined To Do All by Dan Barry [+ Show ]
  

  Excerpted Her music, which she calls “avant-twang” or “clinical blues,” is spare and amazing. It...Excerpted
  
  Her music, which she calls “avant-twang” or “clinical blues,” is spare and amazing. It’s sort of a sinister alt-country, conceived of before Americana became the new big thing. Her expertly-produced 2003 debut earned rave reviews from around the globe, and her follow-up E.P., Three Songs, experimented with home recording and hand-crafted album packaging. Her lyrics deal with depression, aching beauty and dream residues, but she approaches them from a literary perspective, with crafty turns of phrase and quirky wit."

• Lys is More [+ Show ]
  

  "It's probably safe to make such a bold claim as the following: Lys Guillorn is one of the best song..."It's probably safe to make such a bold claim as the following: Lys Guillorn is one of the best songwriters in Connecticut right now. She
  writes haunting and compelling melodies and poetic but entirely accessible
  lyrics, and her songs are prone to unexpected turns (both lyrically and
  structurally). She frames them by playing in a sort of Gothic
  art-country/folk-rock mode, airy and often spooky but also raw, heartfelt
  and dynamic."

• Lys Guillorn Three Songs (EP Review) [+ Show ]
  

  "Three Songs are three of the prettiest home-recorded folky tunes to hit our ears in awhile. Shades..."Three Songs are three of the prettiest home-recorded folky
  tunes to hit our ears in awhile. Shades of Edith Frost, Tarnation, and many
  other indie country artists bloom forth on her songs. [...] The music has a country garden feel but with a good dose of darkness to it so it’s not “skippin’ in the
  garden” country."

• (excerpt from) Amy Rigby Mixes Vulnerability And Experience [+ Show ]
  

  (review of show at the Space in Hamden, CT) Danbury native Lys Guillorn performed before Rigby wi...(review of show at the Space in Hamden, CT)
  
  Danbury native Lys Guillorn performed before Rigby with a borrowed band, the Sawtelles. They played a set of brilliant and unusual songs that borrowed elements from pop, folk and alt-country to create a startling original sound.
  
  Tunes such as "Impossible" and "Little Wren" subtly subvert traditional song forms, and the effect is like looking at an image through cracked glass. With her low, dark voice and sometimes unsettling lyrics, Guillorn is among the most creative and talented musicians on the Connecticut scene.

• Lys Guillorn - Lys Guillorn (CD review) [+ Show ]
  

  Quite why Lys Guillorn's hypnotic debut languished unreleased for almost four years I'm not certain,...Quite why Lys Guillorn's hypnotic debut languished unreleased for almost four years I'm not certain, but her quiet, understated voice is as curiously beautiful as it is oddly unsettling. Her songs - economic, measured and precise - nevertheless exude an undeniably intoxicating warmth. Short, sweet and deceptively alluring, this self-titled set has much to recommend it.
  
  Though an adept multi-instrumentalist, and one who demonstrates some restraint in her arrangements, Guillorn has been able to call on some guest turns to augment her songs. Keeping the beat is Luna and former Feelies drummer, Stanley Demeski. Elsewhere, Luna frontman Dean Wareham adds some immediately identifiable flourishes to Little Wren, one of the album's best songs. Other Feelies Brenda Sauter and Glen Mercer also contribute as does former Voidoid Robert Quine, who adds some minimalist icy sheen to Counterproductive, which is also intriguingly punctuated by a Lightnin' Hopkins vocal sample.
  
  On Impossible, another stand-out cut, Guillorn utilises Glen Mercer on lead - the ensuing wash of twang-inflected psychedelia and la la la harmonies, two-and-a-half-minutes of aural heaven in anyone's language. Weightless, in contrast, is hauntingly unnerving, like some lost outtake from Big Star's "Sister Lovers". And there's an excellent version of the great Johnny Thunders song, You Can't Put Your Arms Round a Memory, featuring just Guillorn on acoustic guitar.
  
  So if oddly uplifting, folk, blues, country-infused, actoustic semi-electric psychedelic dark pop music is your thing, please say hello to Lys Guillorn, you'll get along just fine.

• Lys Guillorn - Lys Guillorn (CD review) [+ Show ]
  

  This is a debut release from Connecticut singer-songwriter Lys Guillorn and quite frankly it’s a rec...This is a debut release from Connecticut singer-songwriter Lys Guillorn and quite frankly it’s a record that gets under your skin in the same way it will slip under the radar of most genre specific music media. To begin with her voice seems to seamlessly morph - one minute she’s Nico, the next Grace Slick and then Natalie Merchant- and these subtle shifts are also reflected in the songs. It’s a diverse array of 1960’s psychedelia and new wave yet executed with contemporary rather than nostalgic performances. The arrangements, though lo-fi on the surface, have a depth and integrity that many current artists fail to achieve despite their constant strive for a ‘back to basics’ take on song writing. The closest comparisons I can make are to early REM with the atmospheric ‘Counterproductive’ and the haunting, hammond laden ‘In Sleep’ sounding like something off ‘Murmur’ whereas the ghost of Nico/The Velvets hangs heavy over the stark ‘Impossible’ and ‘Who’s Losing You’. Guillorn also demonstrates a lighter touch with stripped down carnival/music box tunes such as ‘Steel Pier’, ‘Throne’ and the children’s lullaby ‘Little Wren’ and yet these retain a sinister air about them due to her detached vocals and sparse instrumentation. ‘Weightless’ shows her shifting gears again as her voice soars over Pink Floyd style swirly guitars before finishing the record off with a passionate cover of Johnny Thunder’s ‘You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory’. Having listened to it again (for about the 8th time) whilst writing this I’ve also scribbled down the names Beth Orton, Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, Galaxie 500, Michelle Shocked and Johnny Dowd- which reflects the sheer depth and diversity of Guillorn’s craft. It’s also interesting that this record has been sat in the can for 3 years and yet sounds very fresh- in fact, timeless.

• Lys Guillorn - Lys Guillorn (CD review) [+ Show ]
  

  There is something going on here that is not apparent when it starts off. This meek and mild tunesmi...There is something going on here that is not apparent when it starts off. This meek and mild tunesmith and multi-instrumentalist has a girdle of heavy metal surrounding her, female fragility enclosed in a corset of steel, perhaps. Vocals that are edgy and determined at the same time, a dark side showing through on strangely chilling numbers like 'Counterproductive' and 'In Sleep', and yet her lighter side depicted on songs like her cover of Johnny Thunders 'You Can't Put Your Arms Around A Memory'. Er, well, I don't a lighter side, actually. Falsely gentle, this is ten tunes that are as deep as a razor-blade cut, as strong as a first hit of Russian vodka, as glorious as a national flag in battle.
  HARDTOPINDOWNBUTEASYTOLOVE

Setlist

A typical set is 40-60 minutes of original material. Longer sets can be arranged upon request.

Depending on the gig:

Solo - acoustic or electric guitar and vocals, sometimes banjo

Three piece band - electric guitar, vocals, drums and electric bass

Basic Requirements

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