Lily Vakili Swims the ‘Oceans Of Kansas’
“Okoboji” is the lead-off single from Lily Vakili’s new Oceans Of Kansas album. She’s stepping out from her front-woman status of The Vakili Band and the results are nothing short of spectacular. Inspired by a road trip she once took to Okoboji, Iowa, she has put her remembrances into the kind of music that is as feel-good and free-spirited as it is celebratory. “I was taken by the fresh breezes, the sounds of laughter and water and I was in love so it made an impression.”
Born in Honduras, raised in Florida, Thailand and Puerto Rico, the Essex County Montclair resident has five albums already. “I love the serendipitous nature of art,” she gushes. “It’s disruptive, it’s intentional, it’s an exertion of will.” On the new album, she surges between blues-rock, Brazilian bossa-nova, lush balladry, anthemic rock’n’roll, and Joni Mitchell-styled confessionals. And yes, there once was an ocean in Kansas but it was when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Vakili learned this when she visited the Sternberg Museum of Natural History in Kansas. “I understood something,” she says with wonder, “I understood that I am the archivist, the archeologist, of my own life. Everything here is fleeting.”