There’s a dry, tomboyish cool to Lissy Trullie’s brand of
songwriting — the same quality she brings to her modeling work.
She’s emotional, but neither excessively or academically so, fetching
without being overtly flirtatious. Debut EP Self-Taught Learner rolls along with a decidedly offhand imperviousness: guitars jostle
casually, rhythms pulse, Hot Chip cover impresses, love’s less a
battlefield than a tabula rasa upon which to sketch designs for an even
more cavalier full-length (probably). Ringed with mocking wooooos and
strips of post-Strokes fret monochrome, “Boy Boy” stares down and
sneers at some scenester-boi playa straw man: “All the notches in your
belt make your pants tight / And all of your buys, hanging around /
Take take your sloppy seconds, or whatever, man.” “She Said” sets
girl-to-girl chatter to some dance-rock jangle, while the title track
swipes the clipped, parched textures of ’80s stadium pop — think
the Police’s “Every Breath You Take” — and shuffles in ivory
chips for a first-love remembrance that’s as deeply heartfelt as it is
mildly standoffish. “Are you watching me? Am I different, or am I the
same?” she inquires of the former object of her affections — the
same sort of questions that some unscrupulous reviewer could redirect
in a few years, should her star ascend.
This article appears in May 28 – Jun 3, 2009.