When you are rolling out a batch of vegan cheesesteak where the cheese is made up of a sweet potato concoction an adequate soundtrack is a must. My recommendation...a little bit of Aether:
One of the more minute, but no less key, ingredients in the sweet potato cheese is lemon juice. What better way to celebrate that sour fruit than with its musician namesake Lillie Lemon? Lillie Lemon is an electro-pop duo out of Monterey, CA. Musically and vocally speaking, their new EP Aether sounds more sweet than sour. It is like sunshine and memories and cute little pissing teddy bears that come with their own potties. But if you delve into the lyrics, Lillie Lemon is dealing with some topics that are anything but birthday cake and unicorns. It all starts at the top as the opener, "California Drifting (the Fault Breaks)," takes a look at the future of the great state of California once the fault breaks. Spoiler alert: it morphs into an island and all the out of touch actors and actresses immediately are swallowed up by the ocean (I took the liberty of adding that second part). As depressing as this song could sound in the wrong hands, Lillie Lemon makes the disintegrating US coastline sound so pleasant and poppy.
Next up on Aether is the track "Sinking." This track takes the approach of an East Coast mobster, attaching concrete cinder blocks to the bottom of a person's feet and tossing them out to sea. Don't f**k with me or I'll sink your ass (but I'll sing about it in the nicest way possible). Okay, so I'm painting more of a sinking out of anger picture when the more appropriate one would be thematically depressing. It's less I'll sink your ass if you f*** with me and more of an if you f*** me and love me and befriend me, I'll bring you down. I'm like those cinder blocks on your feet, I'm going down and I'll drag you along. Since "Sinking" hasn't been released as a single, I'm not at liberty to post it here, just know that it is a good one.
After skipping a track, we move on to the fourth and final one on Aether, "Burning Bridges (Cinder and Dust)." This song is about exactly what it sounds like....taking some fuel and fire and lighting up a bridge. Lillie Lemon has their reasons: people are suffering and divided. Bringing down the bridges will idealogically ease some of their pain. Burning is a chance to start over and rise from the ashes like a human version of a phoenix. The track, and probably the entire EP, can best be summed up by the enchanting ending of "Burning Bridges (Cinder and Dust)." Here, over a psychedelic mishmash of electro-pop sounds, the band repeatedly sings, "All fall down to cinder and dust, with luck it will." Lillie Lemon seems to recognize that the future, the current state of human relationships and the perception of oneself may be bleak but their is no reason the music has to follow suit. They also seem to recognize that it isn't too late to start over and begin again.
Here's the radio edit of "Burning Bridges" (which cuts out that enchanting ending that is so necessary to sum up the EP):
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