SPOTLIGHT: How Death and Dreams Inspired MILLY’s Second Album "Your Own Becoming"
THE FIRST THING I WANTED TO TELL BRENDAN DYER OF — MILLY during our interview was how much their fans were going to love their new album. Your Own Becoming, out today via Dangerbird Records, is the best MILLY has been. It’s the tightest they have ever sounded, the truest they have been to their sound, and the closest they’ve been as a band.
It makes sense why they initially wanted to make this their self-titled record. For a while, the record was going to be MILLY until about two weeks out from the announcement. Dyer felt the record was too big to not have a statement title — to “fire out of all cylinders.” He recorded the album with his longtime partner, Yarden Erez, and drummer, Connor Frankel. After recording wrapped, they welcomed guitarist Nico Moreta to the mix, and after touring together as a four-piece, he became just as much a part of the band as anyone else.
“I was like, ‘Dude, I want you to name the album,’” Dyer said. “I ended up sending him a list of words and phrases I had, and nothing was really clicking. Then one day he just texted me, ‘What do you think about Your Own Becoming?’ I was like, that is so cool. That’s it, as far as I’m concerned.”
Ask Dyer a couple years ago and he would have said MILLY was more of a solo project than a band. His isolation was present early on: With his first band, Furnsss, his efforts booking shows and doing the heavy lifting were so individualized that the band eventually dissolved. He moved from Connecticut to California, and somewhere in between he formed MILLY as a personal outlet. He’d write and record all of his songs alone. People eventually came in and out of the band, and Dyer had to figure out how to balance collaboration and control.
Photography Credit: Gilbert Trejo
They released two EPs, First Four Songs and Wish Goes On, then their debut album, Eternal Ring, produced entirely by Gleemer’s Corey Coffman. Dyer wrote and demoed the songs himself during the pandemic, all his bandmates living apart and receiving the parts online. The album champions ’90s rock and slowcore and scored associations to Hum and Swervedriver. At its core, the album is like witnessing a thought form in real time. Your Own Becoming is the thought fully formed, the band and the listener face to face, showing you what they’ve made.
“The difference in approach to [Eternal Ring] with [Your Own Becoming] is night and day,” Dyer explained. “[Eternal Ring] was a record where we played the songs as a band a handful of times before tracking the record… whereas with this album, getting to have that band, we played the songs seriously a million times before going into the studio.”
Your Own Becoming’s writing and recording process was the first time all of Dyer’s bandmates lived in the same place. The story goes: It was the first day of 2023. After a long year prior of being on the road and releasing their debut album, the band was ready to start writing the new record. After spending New Year’s Eve together, having the next day off, and being at the same place at the same time, all the stars aligned for them to get to work again — a fresh start.
“I remember so clearly… This album was very band-operated,” Dyer said. “Most every decision was made as a group, and a lot of the material, or majority of it, came from the three of us jamming. I think of us, the three of us in our practice space on New Year’s Day, and the feeling of the new year.”
Dyer was having a lot of vivid dreams leading up to the new year. The small things always accumulate to the big existential feelings. The artist works full time in an office and a warehouse, rehearses with his band until dusk, rinse and repeat. He felt his exhaustion, falling out of a relationship, and navigating his twenties while living in Los Angeles all catching up. Songs on Your Own Becoming are anxious, but not pessimistic, about death and time. How the former is all around us, and how the latter feels like it doesn’t exist at all.
“I’ve lost a couple of friends to drugs over the years,” he shared. “I remember one dream I had was that one of the friends I lost was still alive in my dream. I remember waking up and walking to work that morning and just being so weirded out that I still have his phone number contact saved into my phone, even though that’s not his phone number anymore because he’s been gone for quite some time now… I don’t know, I never thought you’d make it into one of my lyrics, but now I feel like you’re more connected to me.”
For Your Own Becoming, Dyer tagged in Sonny Diperri, who has worked with contemporaries such as DIIV, julie, Glixen, and Narrow Head. His production is crucial to the record’s cotton-fuzz ’90s attraction. They were inspired by Nirvana’s approach to Nevermind, making everything straightforward, larger, and louder. This record doesn’t waste any time — every moment feels crucial.
The same maxims about 20-somethings that haunted Dyer on his last album are here now, the same way that they are always there when you turn another and another year older.
“The three of my bandmates are significantly younger than I am,” Dyer said. “I’m four years older than they are. Age doesn’t ever feel like anything when we’re together, but sometimes it does. We’re hanging out with Sonny a lot… Getting to hang out with him, he’s in his late thirties and has a kid and a house and all this stuff. Being exposed to that was weirdly influential on me at the time. Just being like, ‘Where do I see myself in 10 years?’ Is 30 really this milestone that people make it out to be?”
I ask him, does being that personal in his music come easy for him?
“Yeah,” he says. “I think it’s the only thing I really know how to do.”
This year, MILLY will celebrate their album release with two shows with slowcore band Idaho. They’re also openers on tours with Fiddlehead, Basement, and Balance and Composure. Dyer is nervous to be received by different crowds, especially ones associated with hardcore after touring with local friends Rocket and Liily or other slowcore and shoegaze bands like Teethe or Gleemer. I assure him that with this album, people are going to love it.
“You never know — it’s so funny, you never know,” he said. “It’s kind of like a shot in the dark. You’re just making it for yourself, or because you have to. But I will say that it’s feeling good. It really does feel so night and day, the energy and stuff. It’s exciting. We feel really proud of it, you know?”
