Lala Lala, the Chicago-based project of Lillie West, today premiered a new stop motion animated video for ‘Water Over Sex’. West says the second song off her forthcoming album The Lamb (out September 28th) is about a paranoid feeling “that any good fortune I encountered would be subsequently taken from me to ‘balance the scales.”
The video was co-directed by Matthew James-Wilson and Toronto-based illustrator Ginette Lapalme. James-Wilson explains how the video came about, commenting: “I know Ginette from the comics scene in Toronto and, since Lillie is a fan (with her stickers on her guitar case and a few tattoos of her drawings), I wanted to work on an animated music video with her for the new album. We spent a week straight shooting using fabric, photocopies, Ginette’s collection of miniatures and knick-knacks, and stuff we found at 99 cent stores in Chinatown. The video follows a lamb doll (which Ginette made) continually daydreaming about the objects around her while she tries to live a relaxing life. We wanted to sort of indirectly reference the conflict in the song about how your lifestyle changes after you quit drinking. Since we all live in three different cities and couldn’t film Lillie for it, I asked Lillie to send over webcam footage of her singing the song that we could animate over.”
Lillie West initially started Lala Lala as a way to communicate things that she felt she could never say out loud. But on The Lamb, her sophomore LP and debut for Hardly Art, she has found strength in vulnerability. Through bracing hooks and sharp lyrics, the 24-year-old songwriter and guitarist illustrates a nuanced look on her own adulthood — her fraught insecurity, struggles with addiction, and the loss of several people close to her.
Originally from London, West moved with her family to Los Angeles, where she spent her teenage years, and later to Chicago, where she enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Inspired by those cities’ DIY music communities, she started Lala Lala as an outlet where she could process her new experiences, which often involved toxic relationships and partying around the city with beloved friends. The turbulence in West’s life throughout that period resulted in an abrasive but tender debut album, Sleepyhead (self-released, 2016). West decided to quit drinking, and she began booking her own DIY tours across the country. Sobriety provided her with a newfound sense of self and clarity, and she began writing the songs for The Lamb while also starting the process of re-learning how to live her life.
Across the album’s 12 tracks, West carefully examines the skeletons in her closet for the first time, hoping to capture honest snapshots of her past selves. Many of the songs show West asking herself agonizing questions about her life with a clever and hopeful curiosity. On the album’s first single and opening track, “Destroyer,” she reflects on feeling self-destructive and the delayed realization something in the past has irrevocably hurt you. In “Water Over Sex,” West laments her old precarious lifestyle, while trying to readjust to her newfound sobriety, and ”Copycat” confronts her feelings of alienation and boredom. “Some of this album is about being frustrated that everything is always repeating itself and being bored with your own feelings,” she explains. “‘Copycat’ in particular is about how everyone talks exactly the same on the Internet and how it sometimes feels futile to try and be yourself.”
After testing a handful of the new songs while on the road, The Lamb’s final form came together while recording at Rose Raft Studio in rural Illinois. Performed by West with Emily Kempf on bass/backup vocals and Ben Leach on drums, the musical arrangements of the album — blending post punk with dream pop influences that incorporate vibrant synths, a drum machine, and even saxophone — find a balance between light and dark, reinforcing these dynamic and intimate songs that will surely resonate.
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