Fenne Lily

The record started like this: a move to New York from England. An out of the blue phone break-up, on Independence Day. A month of running, not eating enough, drinking too much. A month of writing thousands of words a day, frantically, from a place of guilt. A month where it felt like this loss of self. It started out like an exorcism. But it doesn’t end that way.

Because things started to shift for Fenne Lily. The blame she placed on herself dissipated. New York, her new city, started to feel like her home. A place she had some ownership; a place that now held her own memories and experiences. She drove to New England in a truck. She made music with her friends in the Hudson Valley. She spent nights running pool tables. She fell in love again. She began writing the songs to her fourth album, Win Win. And she found that as she did this, the songs she wrote were coming from a place of warmth, self discovery. Something new was emerging from inside of herself. “I wanted to make music that sounded like the sun was out,” says Fenne. Win Win is a record that sounds like the sun is out.

“What do you feel like you’ve won?” asked Fenne’s father of the record’s title. She explained to him that what she won is what she did not lose. Of course, she had experienced loss: the loss of a relationship, the loss of a beloved pet dog. But she did not lose her integrity. She did not lie. Win Win is an exploration of this idea; this need for grit and conviction as a means to make art and to feel whole. The resulting album is some of Fenne’s best, most beautiful writing to date. It is a record that is honest, feels hopeful, sounds free.

In retrospect, says Fenne, “Sleeping” feels like a blueprint for Win Win. A proof of concept. “I say what I mean and am a little bit mean in the process,” she says, “It’s a thoughtful rage.” The song was written in the immediate aftermath of Fenne’s breakup. She was living in an old brownstone in Bed-Stuy, and wrote the song as a container for her anger, a container to say everything she thought she couldn’t say. “‘You kept me around long enough to learn my patterns,” she sings, her voice clear, “Blamed me for returning to them, then said it’s not about me.” There’s a really gorgeous interplay between keys, guitars, and trumpet (which, crucially, is not an actual trumpet, it is a trumpet noise, from the mouth of bandmate and friend Isaac Stalling). The song is strong, searching, and triumphant.

When Fenne can’t figure out the lyrics for a song, she’ll use poetry as a placeholder. She’ll figure out a song on the guitar, then set it to a poem she likes. On Win Win, some of those poets include Richard Siken, Diane Suess, and Franz Wright. While their words are no longer in Fenne’s lyrics, the record still maintains this poetic quality. “Uh Huh,” the album’s opener, is one such offering. The song is written from a roving perspective, where the “you” in question is Fenne. It’s a vantage point that creates a conversational quality in the song, where Fenne explains both her break up and her budding new relationship. The images here are clear and crisp. “Couldn’t breathe and couldn’t sleep and could’ve sworn you lost it all,” she sings, “but it all turned out to be just one year-long long-distance call.”

Win Win was made over the course of a year and a half. In snowstorms, heat waves, when Fenne was in the middle of moving apartments. There were pauses in recording due to a Samba band playing outside, down the block from the studio, or an enormous blizzard that marooned a bass player in Flatbush. She recorded with her old bandmates from England, and new friends she’d made in New York. She recorded the record live, and some of it to tape. It was a challenging recording process. She’d have a little distance from a session, and found that the meaning of her songs were changing as time passed (so much so that she recorded the single “Stranger Things” four different times). “Uh Huh,” too, changed quite a bit from writing to recording. “I knew it had to have a solid groove to it, sound strong and sure of itself, and it took a couple of different band configurations to get there.” says Fenne. The secret ingredient was, as it turns out, drums from longtime friend and collaborator James Luxton.

Win Win was recorded in fits and starts, but the final product is a record that is so grounded, so cohesive, so incredibly lovely from start to finish. Even (and especially) “in Life and on Planes,” the last song on the record. It is a song that was added at the very last minute, after the album had already been mixed, swapped for a different song as a final hail mary. It is a truly glorious song, raw and imperfect, hissing with tape. “I don’t belong to other people now,” Fenne sings in the song’s last moments, over and over, like a mantra. It is a moment that feels so alive, on a record that feels so alive. Win Win is alive. It is a record of self discovery. Sad but happy. Happy but sad. Written in the light.