A.L. and the Mystiks

Aleah "A.L." Dillard started playing guitar at the age of 6 after a year of begging her parents for lessons. By middle school she had started writing songs, often as an escape from the loneliness of being one of very few Black kids enrolled in magnet school, and then being made fun of for being the only Black kid who was into grunge rock and baroque classical music. She studied cello and music composition at Meadows School of Fine Arts where she met future bandmate Carl Ferre-Lang, then a student of bass and music theory. They played together in a band called Chasing the Muse until years of depression, frustration and writer's block led Aleah to give up music altogether and pursue new passion, boxing of all things! Several years after Chasing the Muse broke up, Carl emailed Aleah a recording of a song she had written, which he had meticulously arranged and edited on his laptop, complete with electric sitar, odd rhythm and baroque electric guitar solo. Little by little, Aleah returned to music, testing out new material by busking on a bridge over the Trinity River. Eventually, Carl's ornately beautiful arrangement of Aleah's lyrics would blossom into the gorgeous song that is "New Religion," and into a new band, A. L. and the Mystiks. Together with veteran jazz drummer Gerard Bendiks and funk bassist Wanda Coleman, the Mystiks sound something like P.J. Harvey meets Alabama Shakes. Their songs, although sometimes odd in time signature and eclectic in style, are always danceable and their live shows are energetic and memorable. Best of all, their music is both masculine and feminine, and its appeal reaches effortlessly across racial and stylistic divides.