Right now, where I am isn’t all that crucial to what’s about to be written, but the feeling of being away from your loved ones – even for a few days – is an ever present effect of touring as a band and musician. You are forced, despite your grievances to pack up a small bag of belongings and pile into a rotten van for months on end to push a piece of plastic that you’ve put your music onto and hope to impress other people enough with it that they’ll give you monies for their own personal copy of said recording. In doing so, you leave behind your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, daughter, son, parents and friends. The communication is all by phone and text and you sadden by the day as you continue the journey to move people into a place where your record has to be their record and their love becomes yours. Here in Austin this weekend, the Austin City Limits festival has taught me that it’s no fun to not be at home when you have a combination of any of the above relationships with dear people whom you see every single day. You can look up at bands, spot wedding bands on their ring fingers and immediately know that they’re missing someone, probably that very moment. The endless tours must strain things in so many ways. Then you get to a band like Omaha’s Tilly and the Wall and they’ve got it all figured out for the most part. Not everything can be perfectly sewn up and clean in the contentment category with a band of five, but they’ve got some special insulation from the cruelty that distance applies to people’s hearts. Tilly has the lovely married couple – Derek and Jamie Pressnall – and the added bonus of being a band made of best friends who aren’t just friends because they’re in a band together. They were friends first before the making of music crept in under the door. Watching them interact with each other, it’s obvious that the blow of the wacky life they lead isn’t so harsh. They love each other and somehow radiate this, causing the hairs on your arms to sway with static electricity when you occupy the same room with them. It’s the damnedest thing. This was the second time that they’ve been so kind to visit us and it was another pure pleasure. You kind of secretly look for ways to become a stowaway in the back seat of their van because it feels as if wherever they’re going, they’re taking the excitement with them. Their jokes and giggles – those are all going with. All that you’ll hear is a fading echo of where they emanated from. They’re a bunch of smiley-pantses and when Jamie told me yesterday that she was home working in the garden — there with her husband and her friends nearby – it almost broke my heart. – Sean Moeller

First song
Chandelier Lake (Tilly and The Wall) [3.91MB] [4218 downloads]
– unreleased


A brand new one so it’s still being fleshed out and is changing and isn’t totally complete. In the studio, we are going to fill it with a bunch of different noises and percussion sounds. The one thing we know we want is for it to sound sort of hypnotic with the group vocals and semi-monotonous delivery. The song is about
something specific, but I’d like to keep it curious..not too straightforward. As with any song, I’d rather let the listener decide what it means to them. Generally though, it’s about how easily things can slip through the cracks.

Second song
Urgency (Tilly and The Wall) [2.87MB] [3273 downloads]
– original version appears on Bottoms of Barrels

“Urgency” is a song about the city. Distinctly in these lyrics it is about Omaha, but it is more about the energy of a city, any city..maybe your city!

Third song
Too Excited (Tilly and The Wall) [2.62MB] [3846 downloads]
– unreleased


“Too Excited” is about getting that frustration down into words and
music I can sing and dance to rather than punch someone in the mouth. This is a basic song. I’m saying “I don’t like you, I don’t like your shitty attitude so here’s a song to save your bitch ass from getting knocked out.” Hahahha!

Fourth song
Pictures of Houses (Tilly and The Wall) [2.79MB] [3700 downloads]
– original version appears on Woo (EP)
“Pictures of Houses” is a really, really old one! This one seems like a reverie to me. Like the bittersweet memory of someone you once loved and realizing that through it all, good and bad, you still believe in hope and change. Jamie wrote that one though so I could be wrong! But that’s what’s beautiful about a song. That’s just what it means to me!