San Liya

 

Ilya is a Bristol, UK based duo, composed of singer Joanna Swan & songwriter-guitarist Nick Pullin. On their debut album They Died from Beauty, Swan & Pullin team up with producer/bassist Dan Brown. They gently kneads dramatic John Barry strings with sun kissed acoustics, crisp flattened beats, & smoky aromatic vocals to touch the heart. It's distinctive jazzy, Mediterranean feel is a sonic ray of warmth. Joanna Swan's voice seems captured from the 50s & caged in an entirely modern surrounding without the slightest glitch. A torch-singer from a golden era wrapped in the titanium truths of today & tomorrow.

Ilya - They Died for Beauty, Virgin 0724359576824, 2003.
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Bellissimo
Quattra Neon
Bliss
Heavenly
Soleil Soleil
Pretty Baby
All for Melody
Happy & Weak
They Died for Beauty

bonus track - Asleep at the Wheel (from The Revelation EP) 

 

 

 

Although a really fine freshman release that garnered wide critical acclaim, album sales were not great enough for Virgin to continue on with another outing. Perhaps the debut they released made promises they couldn't quite keep, but their second, Somerset, fulfills their prophecies & more, meeting their most far-fetched expectations, thrillingly going even further. Somerset is a devastatingly beautiful album

Ilya - Somerset, Ilya self-released, 2006.

September Rendezvous
In the Valley
Falling Everywhere
Wonderful
Airborne
We Shone
Winter in Vienna
The Last Castrato
Glory
Juanita
Sleepwalking
Still You Can't Say No

 

 

 

& here is a hard-to-come-by grabbag of songs created to help lighten the dreariness of the Covid lockdown.

 

Ilya - Love in the Time of Corona, Ilya self-released, 2020.

Before the Morning Rose
Lake
Call My Name
The Constancy of Water
Unbroken
The Last Castrato
The Memory
Jamais
Brealthrough

Enjoy,
NØ