Meet Lilts, Your New Favorite Duo

Cellist and vocalist Laura Wolf and singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist John Ross met in 2017 when Wolf was playing in Matt Pond PA and Ross’ band, Wild Pink, was opening for them. There wasn’t a precise moment when they realized that they would link up and form a duo called Lilts together, but it was a natural progression for the two musicians. “We stayed in touch over the years and I remember, when we first started writing, I think we were both at this point of really looking to collaborate on other things outside of our primary projects,” Wolf says. “I reached out to John saying, ‘Hey, I really like singing harmonies, if you have anything you want backup vocals for.’ And John sent me a demo with no vocals, so I just sang over it. It’s been really easy and back and forth since the beginning, it happened really organically.” Those demos eventually turned into Waiting Around, a bonafide EP that has put Lilts in our orbit—and you’d be foolish to not give them your full attention.

Earlier this summer, a song called “Dodge Street” came out of nowhere and it, safe to say, stunned me. Dripped in synthesizers and guitars pumped heavy with distortion pedals and Wolf’s angelic vocalizations, there’s a boldness about the track that so few releases have replicated this year. “I don’t wanna sit here waitin’ while you dream, I don’t wanna waste another day.” I imagine it’s what Springsteen would sound like he made electro-pop; euphoric falsettos doused in bright instrumentation. A Lilts song, according to Ross, begins with an instrumental track that gets batted back and forth, with Wolf chopping parts up and adjusting the arrangements. “I don’t really play guitar or bass or drums, my instruments are cello and Ableton,” Wolf says. “For John to send me all of these instrumental tracks that I don’t normally get to play with, it’s fun to come up with something to sing over. And John’s just so talented at it. Sometimes, I’ll just have a guitar part that I’m playing with and he’ll send it back to me with a full drum beat and a really great bassline. It’s cool to watch.”

Though there are moments, especially on “Dodge Street,” where you can hear hues of the last Wild Pink album—ILYSM—but Waiting Around is largely a unique, singular endeavor that stands apart from anything Wolf and Ross have done in their respective lanes. There’s a reward there, for Ross, in getting to assemble an instrumental knowing that he’s not the one who has to lend a voice to it. Unlike his work in Wild Pink, he gets to construct a song around someone else’s voice. “It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time,” Ross says. “I feel like I’m always struggling to find an interesting vocal part. So, working with Laura, I feel spoiled a little bit. I can send her an idea and then she returns it pretty much fully-formed. It’s a lot of fun.” ILYSM came out only last October, yet Ross has already hinted at another Wild Pink album being on the near horizon. Where does Lilts fit into that equation? Well, his prolific output is a byproduct of him spending as much of his free time playing around with different arrangements—and out of that cluster came Waiting Around. “The first idea happened when I was on tour and it was early in the day, there was just nothing going on,” Ross adds. “I sent [Laura] a very crude phone recording of [‘Dodge Street’].”

Before Wolf and Ross finally got into a studio together, they were doing a long distance collaboration—sending demos back and forth, messing around with instrumentation and layering. The four-song EP came together over the course of a few months, and then the duo met up and spent three days recording in March of this year. “Dodge Street” was self-categorized as a “Jesu producing The Cranberries,” which is an unbelievable mark of accuracy. Waiting Around feels reminiscent of Wild Pink, at least instrumentally in some pockets, but Wolf and Ross were placing all of their focus into bringing their strengths to the table and working through what felt most natural. They’re not consciously quoting anything they’ve made separately in the past; instead, they’re leaning into their own strengths as songwriters and bouncing off one another’s energy.

“I love John’s music in Wild Pink, I’ve been a fan for years now—since that tour—and I feel like John has a really good handle and confidence when it comes to how all of these instruments go together really well,” Wolf explains. “And being confident with his production choices when we’re in the studio is really fun for me to watch. When it comes to instrumentation and production choices. I don’t second-guess myself when it comes to vocals and melodies. I just don’t overthink it, but I definitely overthink it when it comes to instrumentation. I feel like our strengths compliment each other’s strengths, and maybe that comes from doing our own things for so long. You have to figure out what your strengths are in that process.” Ross echoes a similar statement, professing that Lilts thrives off of a “first is best” approach with his instrumental tracks and Wolf’s top-line vocals, an effort to “chase the vibe” of the first take. “I get caught up—struggling—in if I should pursue an idea or not, when it comes to Wild Pink. But with this, it’s just whatever feels really fun and easy,” he adds.

Wolf’s recent solo album, Shelf Life, features a lot of ambient soundscapes, and Ross is no stranger to that realm—as is often exploring country-inspired, atmospheric textures in his side project Eerie Gaits. Waiting Around employs some of that sonic ambition and examination, be it through stretches of shoegaze or the construction of a synth-led breakdown, to which Wolf will glaze a beautiful vocal inflection over top of it. Songs like “Kiss Your Face” and “Too Late” are aces in that department, arriving with the attitude and untapped potential of a rough draft and colored with the pastels of a dense concerto. “With any project, there’s some magic to that initial demo and that initial take,” Wolf notes. “When it comes to your personal music, I think it’s really easy to fall into the trap of overthinking and over-analyzing the choices you make. [John and I], we share a love of early ‘90s, shoegazey dream pop, and that was a North Star. We were chasing whatever came naturally, and it just happens that that chemistry worked really well.”

And that chemistry has pushed Lilts into a new stratosphere of trust. Ross now has the capacity to try fidget with tricks he might not bring to the table for a Wild Pink record, while Wolf gets the chance to separate herself from her cello and work on harmonies and sequencing that is much more indebted to indie rock corridors. There’s this sense of genre exploration and freedom on Waiting Around. “This project has solidified that, for me, what really makes me happiest with music is coming up with melodies,” Wolf says. “It makes me really excited to think about the weird things that John will send my way, and I think John’s choices—even if they’re just little ideas—they lend themselves so well to melody. And that feels really freeing for me.” The feeling is mutual from Ross. “I feel like I could probably start sending ideas to Laura that are outside of the immediate comfort zone for me,” he adds. “There’s some moments on the EP that stick out, genre-wise. Hearing Laura do what she did on those songs, I feel like I could send her anything at this point.”

When Wolf and Ross formed Lilts and put Waiting Around in motion, there wasn’t much initial planning to whether or not the project would blossom into something larger—but Lilts isn’t just a one-off affair. This EP is a building block to a full exploration of rich, beautiful fits of distortion and graceful vocalizing. Together, Wolf and Ross have merged shoegaze, post-rock and dream pop without a hitch—and, yet, Waiting Around sounds brand new and untouched and wholly their own. It’s the mark of brilliance, and Lilts have got it in spades. I hope they keep this bond going forever. “What’s been so enjoyable is how effortlessly it’s all come together,” Ross says. “I hope to just hang onto that, and I think we’re going to keep going for as long as we can.” I said it once and I’ll say it again: I need 1,000 more Lilts songs. And then I need 1,000 more after that.

Matt Mitchell reports as Paste‘s music editor from their home in Columbus, Ohio.