Seoulgaze: Lilly Eat Machine on their excellent debut album and journey so far

By Sam Dougherty (@samtdougherty)
Artwork by Charity Lynn (@_charitylynn_)

“They can't help but make that kind of music. It's in their DNA. It's not about following a trend; it's about something in their veins. We have that kind of blood in our veins too," says Lilly Eat Machine frontman Sean Yoo on how the music of his youth influenced the current shoegaze movement in Seoul. "The trend is coming to us. That's not something we expected."

On the heels of releasing their aggressive and jangly debut album, Eternal Amnesia and Cursed Doomers, we caught up with two members of the five-piece rock band to hear their story and what it's like to grow as a band in the Seoul rock clubs. 

Lilly Eat Machine started playing together as early as 2017. Guitarists Jay and Sangkwon were playing in Hongdae bars under the band name gushipgushipgu (구십구십구.) Sean met Jay through a mutual friend at a university club show and joined the group primarily as a drummer in 2018. The band still enjoys the old songs they used to play, but life got in the way of keeping that version of the group together.

For starters, there was mandatory military service. This unfortunate reality meant little opportunity to make music together. "We can't even use computers for music in the military." Says Jay, "We could only use cell phones. The reason I bought an iPhone was just for Garageband."

"Before we went to the army, I said to Sean, 'Why don't we make another band, and why don't we write our own songs that we like?'" 

Sean and Jay kept this promise and regularly spoke about their music interests and creations during their service time. In the summer of 2020, when they were back together, Sean, Jay and Sangkwon started what became Lilly Eat Machine, but the circumstances of life continued to make it hard for them to play regularly. First was the pandemic, which made it hard to book venues, and then a few months later, Sean moved to Hong Kong to study film until 2022. Technology became vital to the group during this time.

Sean found it possible to work more on their first few songs and make some new ones entirely on the computer. "People can make guitar music without a guitar," says Sean. "We heavily used artificial sounds. I'm not a guitar guy but I was a composer and I was in charge of making music in a band. I tried to rely on something artificial because I could not rely on real guitars and real bass."

Sean credited fellow Korean bedroom shoegaze artists like eeajik and Parannoul for inspiring his musical work while away in Hong Kong.

When the band was once again together, they found their final two members with the lively rhythm section of Hyun-ku and Yongho on bass and drums. Now, it was time to start earning their chops in the Hongdae bars. 

"There are two ways for bands to have a gig. The first one is to audition, and the second is making gigs themselves." With the second option here being hard for unknown bands, Sean explained how Lilly Eat Machine and other indie acts get started with auditions and reaching out to venues through emails and phone calls. 

Their first show after reuniting was at Club Bbang, the Hongdae venue that Sean considers "crucial" for supporting indie bands for more than 20 years. Other Seoul favourites for the band include Club FF, Pet Sounds, Gongsangondo, Channel 1969, The Studio HBC, and Youkillbong. 

In a city where house shows and street performances range from rare to impossible, these spaces are vital to the indie scene and give physical life to a shoegaze fandom that mostly started on the internet.  

As the band worked through the clubs, an album began to form. Two songs written in 2020 are the bookends of Cursed Doomers. 

Bubblegum Disorder is raw and youthful, grooving along to a summery guitar line with lyrics about nostalgia and growing up. At the end of the album is the heavier dentist, with minor reverb-soaked chords and lines like "we've always been damned." In between the two older songs, the band knew they needed "a bridge to connect them."

The result is an album that is diverse in style but connected by the youthful longing and dreaminess that the best shoegaze always seems to capture. Slumber has a classic Britpop groove, while Stone Taped Slumber veers closer to the noisy pop-punk of Cloud Nothings. This freewheeling energy culminates in the album's centrepiece, God is Love, Love is Dead, which rides another bright guitar riff all the way to the anthemic and dark chant that titles the song.

Reverb and noise soak the record, but at the core are some great tunes. Sean's introspective lyrics come out fast and float on top of songs that are melodic and punchy. Seemingly, every song finds its way to a dramatic and loud conclusion that really makes them stand out in a live setting as well. 

When asked about the shoegaze scene in Seoul, Jay and Sean both recognize it as a trend that may not last forever, but they're grateful for the growth they've seen. 

"After COVID, hip-hop's popularity seemed to go down, and rock was on the rise," says Sean. "No one expected that. We restarted the band before that happened. We got kind of lucky."

"I think in a few years, many people will be sick of shoegaze like they were with hip-hop. So maybe we'll try to do some other genres and try some new things. We are always trying to challenge ourselves."

Jay is especially passionate about blues music and would welcome more diversity in Seoul. "I hope there will be more genres in the Seoul indie scene. I am happy to play and hear shoegaze and dream pop, but there are a lot of other genres."

Lilly Eat Machine performing at Spacestation (홍대 우주정거장) in June 2023. From left to right: Hyun-ku, Yongho, Sean, Jay and Sangkwon

At the same time, Jay is grateful for what he's a part of. "Nowadays, the Korean music industry is getting bigger and developing fast. It's the same in the Seoul indie scene. It's getting bigger and bigger. It gives us a lot of motivation to stay in this scene. It makes us feel like we're growing too."

For those looking to support new bands and the alternative rock scene in Seoul, both agree that the best way is simply to show up to the gigs. 

"Please follow the venue's social network accounts," says Sean. "There are a lot of interesting gigs in Korea that you can check out and go to. That's the fastest way to support us." He also mentions many artists use Bandcamp, and following the work they put out there makes a difference. 

Lilly Eat Machine is working on new music and will be playing a show at Pet Sounds in February before heading to Busan for their first shows together outside of Seoul. 

For more information on Lilly Eat Machine, follow them on Instagram here.