On the Rise
Lily Lyons

At twenty years old, Lyons was living in Falmouth, where she found herself entrenched in isolation. "I felt very alone, and I was quite literally alone," she tells me. In the absence of external noise, she became reliant on herself to fill the space. "My voice was a really strong companion for me through that time. It was a light in a completely dark room, or a sound in silence."

On her debut album, Reopen The World, Lyons' voice is at its strongest. But her journey towards finding it began much earlier -- when music revealed itself as the conclusion to a long search for something, Lyons tells me. Something that would allow her to make meaning, to define her path forward. "As most people are in their teens, I was very lost," she admits. But I felt an existential, profound need to find something. And the music really announced itself as the way I was going to do it."

This search was prompted by interspace. Growing up, Lyons was split between the home she shared with her mother in London, and her father's home in Somerset. She grew accustomed to being in transit with weekly eight-hour drives across the country, which allowed her to nurture a connection with herself that she couldn't quite replicate in other environments. "When I think about inner world connection, those drives were a quiet time where I could just be in my own world," she reflects. "That wasn't something that I had a lot of time to do when I arrived at either of those places. My sister would fall asleep in the car, but I needed to stay awake. It was the best time, watching the world zoom past. It feels meditative to me, to be in a vessel being carried somewhere."

Lyons' CD player was her portal. She'd spend those hours absorbing Frank Sinatra's ballads, Elton John's theatricality, and Norah Jones' groundedness, which she credits with not only taming her "hyper, big personality", but also predicting the energy that she'd go on to pour into her own music. "I just love those records. They're grounded, deeply feminine." A notable contrast to the grandiosity of Sinatra and John, Jones' work also opened Lyons up to considering the impact of softness in music.

This was revelatory for Lyons, as it led her to appreciate gentler sounds. She found a love for Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell when she was only fourteen, as they evidenced a commanding sense of depth while still maintaining a delicate demeanour. "There was this soft world that was so compelling to me, and it introduced me to a soft version of myself that wasn't as welcomed in my actual life," she explains. Nick Drake, in particular, demonstrated the possibility of how that gentle quality could be translated to live presence. "You could be really gentle, soft, and quiet, and you could demand the room. That was really meaningful to me."

Joni Mitchell synthesised this concept on a more personal level. For Lyons, she represented the importance of honouring the multiple versions of self that can exist within one person. "She's got this delicate, intricate, beautiful, angelic quality. But then you've got 'Black Crow'. She's gone through so many versions of herself," Lyons says. "It was so inspiring. It showed me that there's not just one way of being a woman, or expressing myself." Mitchell was also Lyons' source of abstract lyricism, sparking the realisation that not all songs had to be direct in their content. They could still hold a sense of mystery while still being impactful.

The idea of multiplicity within the self and a natural tension between opposites became the foundation of Lyons' artistic practice, but discovering this core required a major leap. After turning eighteen, Lyons enrolled in music college -- despite having never written a song in her life. It wasn't bravery, she insists now. Rather, it was simply the path of least resistance. "I was totally at a loss. I just was so lost," she admits. "People have said to me, 'Oh, that's so brave that you went for a career in music,' and I was like, well, I sort of flopped into it. I just thought, I feel so rubbish. What's something that I like? Music! That's something that I like."

This began her time in Falmouth. Surrounded by the ocean and a sense of emptiness, Lyons finally had the space and privacy to explore her voice on a deeply physical level. "I think singing was the place that it all began. It spearheaded my being able to reflect and understand myself," she explains. It was pure feeling. I've got this feeling, and the way that it would find its way out would be through voice. "There is so much information in the way that someone just takes a breath before they even speak. And there's so much information about the way that you feel about yourself, or the way that you read into a situation or interaction with someone. It feels like a vast deep dive into human interaction. "The image that keeps coming to me is a flag in the sand. Here's a bit of me to hold on to. It's so nice to have that anchor."

"Even though that time was quite sad, it's also something that I look back on really fondly," she continues. "I think that sometimes, we harness really profound connections when there's just nothing. You're in the desert, and then something becomes apparent. It's infinitely more meaningful, because it's not crowded out by all of this other stuff."

Much like those long drives, Lyons describes singing as a meditative practice. A method of connecting with herself in a way that she defines as "a deeply feminine pursuit." Not feminine in a gendered sense, she clarifies, but "the spirit of the feminine -- very, very in touch with my body and my expression."

"I feel like so much of the way that I see myself, or the way that I interact with myself in the world, is connected to my relationship with my voice; singing and talking. The music is so profoundly linked with connection and communication. I felt a deep need to be heard and seen, and to be able to hear and see as well.

And ultimately, Lyons was heard and seen when she performed her first-ever gig at the college showcase for Island Records. Their then-president, Darcus Beese -- who signed Amy Winehouse --was in attendance, but at the time, Lyons had no idea the weight of the moment. "I didn't really know who Darcus Beese or what Island Records was," she laughs. "It was only when he told me afterwards that he was the man who signed Amy Winehouse, and I was like, whoa."

Lyons explains that she wasn't familiar with the workings of the music industry when she started out. The naivete of those early years, she now realises, was a gift. She consistently held a wide-eyed excitement that carried her through milestones that she viewed with equal significance. When Hampton Court Palace invited her to play before a Jools Holland show for seventy pounds, she and her mother -- who she fondly regards as her biggest supporter -- were convinced she was about to be discovered. She arrived dressed up and ready to face an audience, only to realise she was playing in the foyer. "We were like, maybe he's gonna come out and hear me," she recalls, laughing. "We were just not phased at all."

Upon reflection, rather than cringing at her earnestness, Lyons feels warmth toward her younger self. "I've lost a little bit of that spirit the last few years, but I've been reminiscing," she says. "There was no pressure or expectation. Just taking the wins. You're getting paid seventy pounds to play your music, and that's really cool."

It wasn't just the milestones that kept Lyons persistent, but also the continued support of her mother. She seemed to see something in her daughter that Lyons hadn't quite yet acknowledged in herself. "She knew me in that way. And that was a really deep thing to have from a parent, to be known," Lyons says softly. When her mother came to her album release show at Rough Trade, Lyons signed her record with the simple truth: "None of this is possible without you."

Now, Reopen The World is the culmination of the search and all of the work that came with it, marking the territories of self that she's revealed along the way. The album allows contradictions to coexist and create friction; happy melodies carry scathing lyrics, while sad sounds deliver joyful messages.

"You can't have one side of the string held without the other, and they need to be pulling in opposite directions for the string to make sound," she explains, pointing out that it's most obvious to her on "Can't Be The One" – where love and disappointment, hope and annoyance, exist simultaneously. "I couldn't hate you if I didn't deeply love you. I couldn't feel that strongly about you being disappointing if I didn't want you to be here. There's vitality in feeling, and that's because there are two opposite forces happening."

The album holds space for all of it: "57" celebrates setting boundaries and living for yourself, while "Only Lonely Person" aches for connection. "Here With You Jo" basks in nostalgic gratitude for a woman who "showed me a different way of looking at the world." Throughout, Lyons is allowing what she calls "the stroppy, pissed off version of myself" to thrive alongside the "broken, aching person." They are consolidated by the warm, folk-toned melodies that weave all of Lyons' perspectives together, no matter where the feeling originates from.

Beyond musical references, a major source of inspiration for the album came from Lisa Marchiano's feminist text The Vital Spark, which celebrates Lilith, the woman who came before Eve and refused to be subservient to Adam. "The book is about celebrating when it's quite good to let your inner Lilith come out," Lyons explains. "To say, 'No, I'm not gonna take care of you and take on your crap because I also have dreams and things I want to do in the world.' I'm not seeing my life as a vehicle for someone else. It's its own thing, and it's for me."

Most importantly, the album represents a gesture: Lyons' choice to step into the room rather than remaining closed off. As she notes, it's "Banging the doors down and saying, 'I'm coming in and I'm not hiding anymore.' I'm not in pursuit of people who are hiding away from me, and I'm not hiding myself. I just want to be alive in my life."

Now that she's made that statement, Lyons is beginning to consider what comes next. Now that she's content with the product of the search, it involves less rather than more. She doesn't feel compelled to explain herself in direct terms, or agonise over meaning. "I think in this album, I've been really going forward to try and explain myself," she reflects. "Now I'm really interested in just letting the feeling lead."

Lyons has been on the road, as we speak, she's in Eindhoven. She's been listening back to voice notes from her journeys, thinking that this could be enough. She doesn't need to rely on more diligent planning. Having taken the time to foster a deep trust in herself, the next chapter is about following her intuition, leaving doors more open as the harmony holds more meaning. "I want to hold more feeling and open space, allowing people to do with songs what they will," she says.

When I mention that it seems she's finding comfort in play, she smiles in agreement. "I think playing is such a nice word," Lyons muses. "Allowing myself to play a bit more. This album took a long time, and I think the next one will not. I'm quite excited about the idea of speed and throwing something at the wall and just seeing what happens."

Thinking about what that might look like, she laughs. "Maybe I'll be following in line with all the music I discovered as a child. Next time you see me, I'll be wearing star sunglasses like Elton John!" Lyons has spent years learning to love the sound of her own voice, to appreciate the multifaceted nature of her being and all of the contradictory selves that she contains. Flag firmly planted in the sand, she declares: This is me. Music has reopened her world by showing her she doesn't have to choose. She can be loud and soft, certain and searching, broken and whole, while still being true to herself.