Here's the scene: I'm 18, I'm with my curly-haired, tattooed boyfriend, we're entering the music shop in Williamsburg by the water, I'm slipping two CDs into my jacket. After strolling suspiciously through the aisles and grabbing what we want, because we are young and hate capitalism and love the thrill of illicit activities and nothing can stop us, we head back to his beat-up Toyota Camry and compare our picks. He shows me his — probably some contemporary post-punk I don't care much about — and I show him mine. Lala Lala's Sleepyhead and The Lamb. He begs me for one. I let him take it. A token of my love. He got me into her music, after all. Then we get drunk and shoplift more stuff and go to a show and continue being invincible until we get tired.
It's no wonder Sleepyhead resonated with us so deeply. The album, Lillie West's self-released debut, captures the gritty ecstasy of doing what you want despite the consequences and the emptiness that eventually follows. Recorded in a basement in five days, Sleepyhead feels like looking in the mirror the day after a party and seeing your reflection staring back at you, the hangover in your eyes, the makeup smeared all over your face. Its followup, 2018's The Lamb, served as her Hardly Art debut and retired the scrappy sound and the self-destructive lifestyle altogether, taking a more refined approach to communicating the chaos of life. In 2021, Lala Lala went experimental with I Want To Door To Open, which leaned into transcendence.
Now the peripatetic musician — formerly based in Chicago, now in LA, with stops in New Mexico, Iceland, and London in between — is getting ready for her Sub Pop debut Heaven2, out this Friday.
No matter what Lala Lala does, it feels deeply human. The Heaven2 lead single "Does This Go Faster?" gorgeously conveys the turmoil that's at the core of her music — an inability to stay still, a pull toward infinity. "It's about this need for more all the time," she says over a Zoom call in mid-January. Yet the song soars steadily, wise and contained, refusing to succumb to the urge to pick up speed.
Heaven2 is another triumph for a masterful artist whose music grows as she does. On our call, we discussed the influences for the new album, which include Oneohtrix Point Never, CrossFit, Iceland, God, and more. Read our conversation below.
Björk & Iceland
When did you get into Björk?
LILLIE WEST: In high school. I feel like she’s such a freak touchstone. I just feel like it was handed down to me from older alt people. She’s like a Stephen Malkmus or something. She’s just mother.
I first got into her in high school, and then when I was writing this album, I saw her at the movie theater once around Reykjavik. You’re not supposed to talk to her. She likes her privacy, and people don't bother her there. But her album, Homogenic in particular, I was listening to a lot, and there’s this one song, "Bachelorette," that I was listening to a lot and just thinking about her while I was there and literally seeing her sometimes.
You traveled to Iceland to do a residency in a small town there. Were you living in Iceland after you did the residency? You moved there?
WEST: So I was living in New Mexico in a crazy off-grid trash house, like a freak community. I did this residency in Iceland, and it was like the best. It was probably the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. This one month I spent in this tiny town Seydisfjordur on the East Coast, and there was no light. There would be like two hours of sunlight a day. And we did all this crazy outdoor survival stuff, but I met a bunch of people and I ended up moving out of the eco housing community because it was really challenging it was not what I had anticipated. I put my stuff in storage and then for like two years, I couldn’t stay in Iceland for more than three months because of Brexit. But I was kind of between Iceland and England, and then I would sometimes go to California, and sometimes back to New Mexico, but I was mostly in Iceland. I’m a famously flighty person.
I was specifically curious about you learning how to make a knife at the residency.
WEST: Yeah, Palli, the knifemaker. It’s this old Icelandic guy who taught us to make knives. And then actually I was in LA talking to Jónsi from Sigur Rós. I was like, "I made this knife with this knifemaker." And he was like, "Palli." I was like, "How the fuck do you know the knifemaker?"
You also went backpacking in a blizzard?
WEST: That was at LungA, the residency. The town, Seydisfjordur, is in a fjord, and it’s water and there’s mountains on either side. And on one tip, there’s fjords everywhere all around it. On the tip there’s this place called Skálanes, which is this research center where one of the people running the program has an art and science project. You can just drive there in the summer, but in the winter the only way to get there is to hike for like eight hours. So we did.
There was a bird that was dying and one of the guys broke its neck and then we ate it later. It was crazy. We had to bring all of our food, and the weather was so intense that we actually got stuck at the research center longer than we thought so we were starting to ration food. I was like, "This is crazy." And then we hiked back.
How did you feel eating the bird?
WEST: I actually didn’t eat the bird. I was vegetarian at that point. I saw everyone disassembling it, but I felt good that it was a dying bird and it was being put to use. It’s these really cool little birds, they’re white and they make themselves invisible in the snow. Pretty cool birds.
Did you worry that you were gonna die?
WEST: No, because we had these three people running the program who are all really outdoorsy and Icelandic and know the terrain really well and also they had these emergency phones. There’s good emergency services in Iceland because the weather changes so quickly and it’s so extreme. But it never felt like we were gonna die. I was just like, "This is physically intense," but I tend to push myself physically. I was training for the half marathon, and I ran too much and too fast, and now I’m injured for like six months.
Running & CrossFit
I feel like that’s what a lot of people do when they get sober. They just get really into running and then injure themselves.
WEST: It’s very classic. I’m gonna be three years sober next month. I got into running like two and a half years into sobriety.
You mentioned CrossFit.
WEST: That’s what started my fitness journey, the Icelandic CrossFit. My friend would take me to these intense classes, and they were in Icelandic, which I do not speak. I would just be watching what everyone else does, or she would kind of translate sometimes, but I was the weakest one there by far. Icelandic people are intense, and they’re intense about fitness. That friend was visiting here recently and it was pouring rain, and she was like, "Do you want to go for a hike?" And I was like, "It’s pouring." And she was like, "I’m from Iceland." But really it started the journey in which I feel way more in my body than I ever have and now it’s really important to me to feel that way.
Where do you go to run?
WEST: Well, I was running just around my neighborhood at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, but now I’ve just been swimming. So annoying because I have a labral tear in my hip and my meniscus is misformed on my knee and I have IT Band Syndrome. My whole left leg is totally fucked. So I do laps at the Y and I do hot yoga.
Well, those are nice things.
WEST: Yeah, they’re fine. I’m not quite in gratitude yet about it. I’m still a little bit bratty. I just love the way running makes me feel, and I miss it, but it’s temporary.
I have only tried running on a treadmill, which is so boring.
WEST: I can’t run on a treadmill. It’s awful. I was running like 10 miles out in the world and feeling good, and I run one mile on a treadmill, and I’m like, "This is disgusting. I hate this." Kevin Morby says "dreadmill."
What’s your secret to overcoming fear of running outside?
WEST: You literally just have to do it. And that’s my advice for overcoming fear of everything — you just have to do it. And also with running, I feel like people who don’t run think they can’t run, but you just have to go really, really slowly. Like, that’s it. You think you’re going slow and you’re not going slow. When my boyfriend I were running together, he would do this thing where he put his hand in front of me to slow me down. You have to just go really, really slow. And you can do it. But also you know when people start climbing and then they can’t accept that not everyone likes climbing? Like, "No, you just have to try it. We’ll do it." And I’m like, "I don’t like climbing." I feel that way with running. I’m like, "Everyone can run. You just have to go slower."
Oneohtrix Point Never, Brian Eno, & Aphex Twin
WEST: I was thinking about a lot about "A Barely Lit Path," which is one of [OPN’s] newer songs. He has a couple of records that I really like. I really like his soundtrack stuff. I just signed up for his School Of Song workshop. But do you know the Brian Eno song "The Big Ship"? It’s what I like to call an instant classic, where it’s almost like you’re listening to it and you’re like, "I’ve heard this before." It’s so universal and amazing that you’re like, "This exists." But it’s just that good of a song.
"A Barely Lit Path" by Oneohtrix Point Never does the same thing for me. It tickles the same place in my brain. It’s cinematic and melodramatic and really beautiful. Both "A Barely Lit Path" and "The Big Ship," they’re like in the finale of a movie or something like that, the big moment.
I was curious how Oneohtrix Point Never influences your production. I didn’t realize that you have been producing your own stuff.
WEST: Well, kind of. The last two records I’ve had a co-producer. Melina [Duterte] had a very heavy hand in this record. She’s such a good producer and musician, and she’s the kind of person who can really understand my language when it’s not necessarily explicitly musical. When I’m like, "This needs to be crunchier" or "more slippery" or whatever. And sometimes I’ve worked with engineers and producers who get pretty frustrated. They’re like, "Well, that doesn’t mean anything." But she’s a really good translator. But it depends. "Does This Go Faster?" actually is pretty similar to the demo. Like the intro, the messy part is from the demo. We just moved it over and we added some stuff.
But I think with Oneohtrix, I’m always trying to skirt the line of something mechanical and emotional. And I feel like he really rides that line really well. Aphex Twin and Björk do the same thing, where they have this harshness that also kind of breaks your heart. And I just try and emulate those things from them and from Oneohtrix in particular. Harshness and and emotional vulnerability at the same time. I really like scary, pretty music. I also think Oneohtrix, Björk, and Aphex Twin are all really versatile. And I like that idea. There’s like a million different ways to make songs.
When are you gonna collab with Oneohtrix?
WEST: I don’t know. He’s so big now. He just did the Marty Supreme soundtrack. I’m like, "Goodbye…"
Remember when he did the Soccer Mommy record though?
WEST: I do remember that. Soccer Mommy’s a lot more popular than me, though.
God
I’ve been thinking about how to talk about God without scaring people. And I’m kind of just like, "Fuck it." I just am obsessed with the idea that I’m not in charge, that humans are not in charge, that there’s an energy that is happening, whether or not we accept that, or give in to that. And obviously our actions affect people and affect the environment. It doesn’t mean give up, but it does mean give in. It doesn’t mean don’t try to be a better person or don’t try to help people or whatever. I just think that we’re so foolishly self-obsessed and we think we’re so much more powerful than we are and it’s really silly. I love that I’m not in charge.
It’s scary, but I love God. I don’t even know what that is exactly to me. I’m not Christian. I don’t subscribe to any particular religion or anything, but I am really spiritual, and it has been a very healing journey for me in that way. I feel like when I was a teenager, I had upside down cross earrings. I was like, "I know everything." And now I’m like, "I don’t know anything." All I can do is the best that I can and submit to the universe. And I love the universe. I love the world.
You seem to have an interesting relationship with nature.
WEST: Well, I’m also obsessed with it.
I feel like that could be…
WEST: God? Yeah. I think so. I mean, it changes. I have a friend whose God is the ocean. That’s their God. I don’t know what mine is, but it’s something more powerful than me. I’ve been thinking about this. Nick Cave is obsessed with God, and he always talks about it. I read an interview where he was like, "People are sometimes like, 'You need to stop talking about God so much. Like, why did you start doing that?'" He was like, "I’ve always talked about God. I’ve always been obsessed with God." And he is Christian and that’s not my journey or experience, but I was like, "That’s cool." Like why am I so afraid of scaring people? I think everyone’s afraid of being controversial in any way.
I did want to ask about death, because there’s a line on “Anywave” that says, “So scared of the end/ I can’t feel the now.” Does the idea of God makes you less scared of death?
WEST: Interesting. I wasn’t thinking about death when I wrote that line. It’s more like the end of whatever I’m enjoying, whether it be a relationship or my career or even just enjoying hanging out with someone and thinking about how it’s gonna be over. I don’t think about being afraid of death that much, but I do have a lot of fear of losing things and I definitely think the idea of God is comforting because I have to believe that if that happens there’s a reason. I don’t think everything happens for a reason — I think humans are so complicated and hurt each other and that is not supposed to happen — but I have to believe that when I lose something that it’s part of a bigger journey of my life.
Heaven 2 is out 2/27 on Sub Pop. Pre-order it here.
