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Thursday, 08 December 2005 08:16

While playing music that rises, falls, starts, stops, speeds, and slows, Ilya manages to keep each person’s role simple yet integral, thus eliminating the effect of a soloist.

When doing a large jigsaw puzzle, each person involved usually brings something different to the table. One may hold a piece of the sky, the land, the people, or the scenery, but each person’s individual part is just as important to the whole. This is the mentality that San Diegan sextet Ilya utilize in order to create their unique aural soundscapes. A fiery trip-hop opus indeed, their debut, Poise Is the Greater Architect, serves up a concoction of jazz, classical, experimental, rock, noise, and urban ideals.

Taking the best of each genre, Ilya masterfully blend thick backbeats, swirling guitars, forceful bass, dripping keyboards, and sultry vocals into ten songs that are as enchanting as they are tantalizing. “BPD” chants about slowly pushing you away and makes you feel the pain infusing the lyrics, where “Isola,” Ilya’s signature track, grinds with seduction.

Perhaps the most impressive element of the band’s sound is its dynamics. While playing music that rises, falls, starts, stops, speeds, and slows, Ilya manages to keep each person’s role simple yet integral, thus eliminating the effect of a soloist. This puts their entire sound into the forefront as a mature entity and doesn’t have the “stepping-on-toes” effect where everyone in the band is striving for the listeners’ attention. Such a developed element of tact and talent gives definite validity to the slew of awards that Ilya has won, naming them one of today’s hottest independent artists.
Released independently in 2002, Poise will be rereleased by Second Nature Recordings on June 17. Visit www.ilyamusic.com.