Vocalist, Lily Taylor, was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Performance and Composition of Contemporary Music from College of Santa Fe in New Mexico in 2004, with a focus on vocal studies. After many years working as a professional musician, arts administrator, and private teacher in Santa Fe, New Mexico and San Francisco, California, Taylor released her critically acclaimed solo album The Ride in 2014 while residing in Dallas, Texas. Her much anticipated album, Amphora released in July 2023 to glowing reviews. Taylor continues to teach private voice lessons and hosts a radio show on 92.9FM KUZU LP Denton, Texas called BandWidthTX every 2nd and 4th Tuesday from 7-8PM CST.
Lily Taylor has collaborated with musicians, dancers, performance artists, poets, fashion designers, and artists around the Bay Area, New Mexico, and the state of Texas - exploring the art of Drag, dive rock clubs, vintage jazz halls, SoMA theaters, parlors, galleries, and underground venues of San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, CA; Denver, CO; Portland, OR; Providence, RI; Cambridge, MA; New York, NY; Denton, Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, and Dallas, TX. Other projects include: experimental and noise acts: Victoria Spolia, Ulnae, Locations, XIOIX, a collaboration with Concussed (Jim Branstetter), a collaboration with composer and new media artist Martin Back ; Hip Hop collaborations with Juicy The Emissary, Joey Mousepad; Jazz collaborations with Daniel Fabricant, The Cottontails, Karina Denike, Drizzoletto / Octomutt, Gregg Prickett, William Wicht, Aaron Gonzalez; electronic music collaborations with Brian Mayhall, Wanz Dover, Gil Trythall, Decadent Dub Team, and Black Taffy. Currently collaborating with husband and video artist, Sean Miller in Locations and participating in the Dennis Gonzalez Legacy Band.
Venues of note from over the years: The Lab SF, CA, Issue Project Room NY, Cake Shop NY, The Make Out Room SF, CA, Amnesia SF, CA, The Stud SF, CA, CounterPULSE SF, CA, The Empty Bottle Chicago, IL, Sunset Strip House of Blues LA, Museum of Human Achievement ATX, Fort Worth Modern Museum of Art, Contemporary Jewish Museum San Francisco, Denton Arts Council, Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Kessler Theater, and more.
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J&Js Single
Music Video by Sean Miller
weekinpopKepler Wells Single
Music Video by Julie McKendrick
foxydigitalisEver New Single
Music Video by Brian Tomerlin
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Angelic and visceral vocal-driven avant pop...
— KATIE CAPRI IMPOSE MAGAZINE BROOKLYN, NEW YORK
The Texan experimental pop chanteuse Lily Taylor crafts a supple, liminal album of abstract song matched with twinkingly electronics and rosy dronescaping. These songs are the candy colored variations on much of the narcotized lullabies that Liz Harris and Rachel Evans have been conjuring in recent years. Taylor keeps the wash and the slumbering blur, but arranges her songs with the soft electronic patter of twinkled, simple melodies that could easily be mistaken for something off of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works Vol II. Her full-bodied voice extends well beyond this bed of electronics, getting looped, layered, and treated through various effects, often becoming a miasma of self-harmonizing repetitions and chorales, all lush and ethereal.
— AQUARIUS RECORDS SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
The avant-garde singer is an exceptionally intriguing artist. Solid and ethereal, her pure-crystal voice ambulates a pleasantly experimental melodic realm. Along with compelling visuals created by her husband Sean Miller, Taylor’s enchanting live act conjures a thousand moods at once.
— EVA RAGGIO DALLAS OBSERVER MUSIC AWARDS 2014
Lily is truly a siren of classic mythology and quite possibly in future tales as well.
— RED CELL, SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
As if Ms. Denike did not offer enough vocal magic, she duets on many of her songs with Lily Taylor, a show-stopping singer in her own right…
— TODD WANERMAN, THEBAYBRIDGED.COM SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Taylor’s extremely diverse background informs her artistic voice without overtaking the singular vision explored on [her album] The Ride. She has studied contemporary, Western classical, jazz, funk, R&B, West African and Middle Eastern/Balkan music at College of Santa Fe in New Mexico. Over the last decade she has performed with experimental rock bands, Americana, Turkish and Classical ensembles, noise shows, indie-pop bands, jazz bands, DJs and hip hop crews. With such a diverse background, Taylor is capable of whatever she puts her mind to. That makes the striking originality of her album all the more special. The Ride is currently available in digital format, vinyl and cassette tape.
— WANZ DOVER, DALLAS OBSERVER
This lovely lady has a gorgeously haunting voice. A MUST SEE for all discerning music lovers.
— CARLETTA SUE KAY, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
There’s the sort of music where the instrumentation alone makes the track. You’re playing air drums while driving in your car; the people next to you are pointing and laughing. Then there’s the type where you’re sucked in with the emotional draw of the vocals; this is where you find artist Lily Taylor. Her new song [Across the Hills] has barely any instrumentation aside from very light touches that allow space for her vocals to draw you in. Those pipes are seductive, sucking you in second by second. Her new record, The Ride, will be released by Pour Le Corps in September 2014.
— AUSTIN TOWN HALL MUSIC BLOG, AUSTIN, TEXAS
Damn! This lady can belt it…
— ALEX DE VORE, MUSIC WRITER FOR THE SANTA FE REPORTER, NEW MEXICO
In regard to the music video and track, ‘J&Js’, “Lily Taylor and Sean Miller have done something exquisite here: Time and memory reverse in a musical and visual production ethos, evocative of a classic 4AD style. Both flowery and glassy in consonance, hallucinogenic and unknown in dissonance. One processed voice, and an intimate video portrayal compels the subject into realms of emerald and dusk: black velvet and abstract beauty mingles with the grotesque, in a sublimely layered textural pastiche. This is not pop music.
— DESMOND SHEA, SAN FRANCISCO, CA
The Ride, is [a] lush piece of artistic, synth-laced pop, created by Dallas-based singer and sound sculptor Lily Taylor. Nine tracks of austere beauty, limned with Taylor’s flexible, ethereal soprano — one of the most arresting local voices I’ve heard this year.
— PRESTON JONES, LONE STAR SOUNDS FTW
Lily Taylor [performs] beautiful, life-affirming melodies and lyrics that will make you understand how awesome music can be.
— M. CODY MCPHAIL, DALLAS, TEXAS
Highlights of the night for me were discovering Karina Denike & Lily Taylor…Karina Denike & Lily Taylor were as sultry as can be on their rendition of “Silver.” The recorded tracks are just as amazing.
— JAMIE FREEDMAN SF MUSIC EXAMINER SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
Her songs are like dreams. Like soft, yet insistent rituals. Like a form of voluntary hypnosis. Like Pop but without the sugar. Like Electronica played in an infinite canyon. Like Jazz, but from the perspective of a shaman. Sometimes, echoes of Trip Hop and Tom Waits resonate within the empty hallways of tracks like “Reap” or “Taste,” which feel more like sonic landscapes than traditional songs. But these references remain vague and never crystallize into clear-cut genre-affiliations. It should seem apt that Taylor at times sounds as though she were singing in her sleep.
— TOBIAS FISCHER, TOKAFI.COM