In the summer of 2020, our recent guests MILLY gained access to perform at Linguine’s Haunted Mansion (typically closed off from the public). Using only 5 Sony VX1000s, we were able to document this chilling hell ride.
Warning: this has been deemed as nightmare fuel. Watch at your own risk.
0:14 Star Thistle Blossom
4:27 Star Spangled Banner
8:03 People Are Forever
11:06 Birds Fly Free
15:37 Talking Secret
18:28 Teach Old Dogs New Tricks
Wish Goes On EP is out now. Grab it Wish Goes On EP.
Wish Goes On soundtracks the (re)birth of a band called Milly. It is something new emerging from something old; something old from something older, made new again. In 2019, Milly hit the road with labelmates and fellow fans of fuzz, Swervedriver. At the time, their lineup was rotating consistently as Brendan Dyer, Millyโs principle songwriter, searched for permanence in the form of a live band. It was on this tour that something clicked for Dyer, who recalls the feeling as nothing short of cosmic. He remembers thinking one day, simply, โThis is the band,โ and so it was. Spencer Light on guitar, Yarden Erez on bass, and Zach CapittiFenton on drums, with Dyer playing guitar and singing the songs.
The dynamic that burst into existence on this tour only deepened in the following months. โSo much of it for me are those in-between moments,โ Dyer says about the bandโs blossoming friendships, โdriving in the car listening to music, or being on break from rehearsal getting something to eat from Lassens.โ Dyer would bring sketches of songs to the group, most of which heโd already been developing for years. โThis release marks the transition from Milly as a solo project to Milly as something more unified,โ Dyer explains. CapittiFenton, Erez, and Light were invited to dissect and rework his demos, a process that continued right up until the time they found themselves in rural Colorado actively recording Wish Goes On with Gleemerโs Corey Coffman. Coffman, who engineered and produced, also became involved in the songwriting process at this point, offering ideas the band would take home and play with before returning to the studio the next day.
The result is five songs which complement one another artfully. By the time Dyer sings, โBut itโs different now, feels like the same old town but I know itโs notโ on the EPโs second track, โDenial,โ it is not only a hometown that has disappeared in change, but also the sordid illusion of US supremacy as it is incessantly propagandized, especially to children โ a notion which opener โStar Spangled Bannerโ openly unsettles. Dyer wrote โDenialโ and the three songs that follow at around the same time in his life, with โStar Spangled Bannerโ coming significantly later, sometime after Millyโs formative tour in 2019. There is something to be said about these conversations across time, the album receding in a sense into the past even as one advances through it. Maybe it has something to do with the idea that longing, wishful thinking, and hope are always reaching both backwards and forwards. Maybe when Dyer sings that he โcanโt get past denial,โ heโs referring in a sense to the denial of anything but the present moment. Maybe, in the way of Alan Watts, Wish Goes On furthers the idea that โThe only way to make sense out of change is to plug into it, move with it, and join the dance.โ Dyer describes something to this effect when he says heโs been โtrying to keep my head down and follow my path, knowing things will work out.โ In the same conversation, he openly acknowledges that โeven if thatโs not true, it still feels helpful,โ which is to say, of course, โWish Goes On.โ
