''Eccsame the Photon Band'' is the second album by the American

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United Kingdom, United States and New Zealand in the early to mid-1980s. Although the term was originally used to describe rock music released through independent reco ...

band Band or BAND may refer to: Places *Bánd, a village in Hungary * Band, Iran, a village in Urmia County, West Azerbaijan Province, Iran * Band, Mureș, a commune in Romania * Band-e Majid Khan, a village in Bukan County, West Azerbaijan Province, ...

Lilys Lilys are an American indie rock band formed in Washington, D.C in 1988. The only constant member is Kurt Heasley, with the line-up changing regularly. Several of the band's tracks have been used in television advertisements, including the ba ...

, released in 1994 on the

spinART SpinART Records was a New York City-based independent record label that released recordings by The Apples in Stereo, Clem Snide, Frank Black, and Michael Penn. The label was started by Joel Morowitz and Jeff Price in 1991. SpinART filed for ban ...

label. The album saw the band move towards

dream pop Dream pop (also typeset as dreampop) is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such ...

. The notoriously nomadic

Kurt Heasley Lilys are an American indie rock band formed in Washington, D.C in 1988. The only constant member is Kurt Heasley, with the line-up changing regularly. Several of the band's tracks have been used in television advertisements, including the band' ...

refers to this period of

history as EPOCH I, also included is his first seven-inch single " February Fourteenth", the mini LP A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns and

' first full-length album, In The Presence of Nothing. ''Eccsame the Photon Band'' was recorded at Mike Deming's Studio 45 in

Hartford, Connecticut Hartford is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. The city, located in Hartford County, Connecticut, Hartford County, had a population of 121,054 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 ce ...

,Daley, David (1995) "Mary Karlzen's Got a Winner; Tanya Tucker, Try Again", ''

Hartford Courant The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is advertised as the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven and ...

'', June 1, 1995, p.18 largely as duo of Heasley and Harold Evans (of the band Poole).Wolk, Douglas
Lilys
, ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who, Dave Schulps, and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

'', retrieved 25 December 2009 This album marks

shift to a slower, moodier, and more spaced-out sound. "I went closest to what my 23 year-old brain could stand with Eccsame— to the edge of my own mortality and sanity", Heasley says. "as far as the period, the energy, the zeitgeist of what we were intending, that was the only time we ever did it." While

' musical style and approach shifts continually, the early recordings, the debut album '' In the Presence of Nothing'' and ''Eccsame the Photon Band'' were strongly influenced by My Bloody Valentine. The first seven-inch single “February Fourteenth,” released on Slumberland in 1991, even gives direct tribute to their impact. My Bloody Valentine frontman

Kevin Shields Kevin Patrick Shields (born 21 May 1963) is an Irish musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, who achieved international fame as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the alternative rock band My Bloody Valentine (band), My Bloody Valenti ...

is a huge fan of Heasley’s work, and in his book on MBV's

Loveless Loveless may refer to: Comics and literature * Loveless (comics), ''Loveless'' (comics), a comic book series by Brian Azzarello, Marcelo Frusin, Danijel Zezelj, and Werther Dell'Edera * Loveless (manga), ''Loveless'' (manga), a manga series by Y ...

for Continuum’s

33 1/3 33 may refer to: *33 (number) *33 BC *AD 33 *1933 * 2033 Science * Arsenic, a metalloid in the periodic table * 33 Polyhymnia, an asteroid in the asteroid belt Music * La 33, a Colombian salsa music band Albums * ''33'' (Luis Miguel album) (2 ...

series, writer Mike McGonigal called

“the only post-MBV ‘

shoegaze Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with dream pop) is a subgenre of indie rock, indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion (music), distortion and effects, a ...

’ band that mattered." Producer,

Rich Costey Richard Costey is an American music producer, mixer, and engineer. He has worked with musicians across genres including rock, indie, pop, hip-hop, and electronica. Notable collaborators include Fiona Apple, Vampire Weekend, Foo Fighters, Sig ...

helped to create the album's iconic textures. Interviewed on the history of Eccsame by Edward Charlton of Clicky Clicky Music, Costey explains: "The drum sound was a combination of several things: the hard, open space that the live room at Studio .45 presented...and also the minimal and incredibly powerful, tasteful playing of Harry Evans. Listening to it today, it seems a study in how a drummer should play to the sound presented to him or her, as opposed to the other way around." Out of print for over twenty years, a remastered vinyl version is being re-issued through

Frontier Records Frontier Records is an independent record label, started in 1980 in Sun Valley, Los Angeles by Lisa Fancher, a former employee of BOMP! Records and writer of the liner notes for the first album by The Runaways. History Frontier Records first ...

. This 21st anniversary re-release includes original artwork and has an enhanced dynamic range with the reordering of songs. "The Hermit Crab" has been moved and now begins side two, allowing for a deeper cut of side one, and allowing increased audio fidelity.

Critical reception

The album was described as "one of the Lilys' best" by Jason Ankeny, writing for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. It was described as "a hallucinatory revelation" by Marc Hogan of ''

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music magazine founded in 1996 by Ryan Schreiber in Minneapolis. It originally covered Alternative rock, alternative and independent music, and expanded to cover genres includin ...

''.Hogan, Marc (2006)
Lilys ''Everything Wrong is Imaginary''
,

, February 22, 2006, retrieved 26 December 2009 Comparing it with the band's previous album,

Douglas Wolk Douglas Wolk (born 1970) is a Portland, Oregon-based author and critic. He has written about comics and popular music for publications including ''The New York Times'', ''Rolling Stone'', ''The Washington Post'', ''The Nation'', ''The New Republi ...

, writing for ''

'', called it "a much crazier record, and a much quieter one". Andrew Unterberger of ''

Stylus Magazine ''Stylus Magazine'' was an American online music and film magazine, launched in 2002 and co-founded by Todd L. Burns. It featured long-form music journalism, four daily music reviews, movie reviews, podcasts, an MP3 blog, and a text blog. Addi ...

'' stated that the album was "not influenced by shoegazing as a genre, but rather as a principle", calling it "a masterpiece of mood, atmosphere and production."Unterberger, Andrew (2003)
Lilys ''Precollection''
", ''

'', 2003, retrieved 26 December 2009 Andrea Moed of ''

CMJ New Music Monthly CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events, online media company and a distributor of up and coming music CDs, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music ...

'' stated that on the album Heasley "sounds like

David Gilmour David Jon Gilmour ( ; born 6 March 1946) is an English guitarist, singer and songwriter who is a member of the rock band Pink Floyd. He joined in 1967, shortly before the departure of the founder member Syd Barrett. By the early 1980s, Pink F ...

's slightly less evil twin, numb but not quite comfortable".Moed, Andrea (1994) "Lilys ''Eccsame the Photon band''", ''

'', December 1994, p. 22 "The obscurely titled, ''Eccsame the Photon Band'', is the

' detour into spartan dream-pop," describes

, "

's soft, distanced voice is ideally suited to the coldly atmospheric textures of tracks like the languorous opener "High Writer at Home" and the narcotically catchy 'The Hermit Crab', the album is still one of the

' best."

Track listing

# "High Writer at Home" - 5:53 # (untitled) - 0:12 # "Day of the Monkey" - 3:49 # "FBI and Their Toronto Transmitters" - 3:36 # (untitled) - 0:18 # "The Turtle Which Died Before Knowing" - 7:56 # "The Hermit Crab" - 3:34 # (untitled) - 0:16 # "Overlit Canyon (The Obscured Wingtip Memoir)" - 5:15 # "Hubble" - 6:06 # "Kodiak (Reprise)" - 0:49 # "Radiotricity" - 3:41 # "Your Guest and Host" - 4:40 # (untitled) - 4:54

Personnel

* Kurt Heasley -

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

, bass guitar, organ, synthesizers, vibraphone * Harold "Bear" Evans -

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

bass guitar The bass guitar (), also known as the electric bass guitar, electric bass, or simply the bass, is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. It is similar in appearance and construction to an Electric guitar, electric but with a longer nec ...

vibraphone The vibraphone (also called the vibraharp) is a percussion instrument in the metallophone family. It consists of tuned metal bars and is typically played by using Percussion mallet, mallets to strike the bars. A person who plays the vibraphone ...

, vocals * Michael Deming - organ, vibraphone, bass, tone cluster * Rich Costey - loops, synthesizer * Robert Andreano -

french horn The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most o ...

flugelhorn The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet, but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B♭, though ...

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

, slide guitar * Dave Frank - drums Orgera, Alexandra; Saul, James; Howard, Brian, & Rapa, Patrick (2006)
The Lilys Family Tree
", ''

Philadelphia City Paper ''Philadelphia City Paper'' was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The independently owned paper was free and published every Thursday in print and daily online at citypaper.net. Staff reporters focused on labor issues ...

'', February 16–22, 2006, retrieved 25 December 2009

References

{{Authority control 1994 albums Lilys albums