Comes With A Smile #14 (London, UK) Spring 2004 by Geraint Jones www.comeswithasmile.com Quite why Lys Guillorn's hypnotic debut languished unreleased for almost four years I'm not certain, but her quiet, understated voice is as curiously beautiful as it is oddly unsettling. Her songs - economic, measured and precise - nevertheless exude an undeniably intoxicating warmth. Short, sweet and deceptively alluring, this self-titled set has much to recommend it. Though an adept multi-instrumentalist, and one who demonstrates some restraint in her arrangements, Guillorn has been able to call on some guest turns to augment her songs. Keeping the beat is Luna and former Feelies drummer, Stanley Demeski. Elsewhere, Luna frontman Dean Wareham adds some immediately identifiable flourishes to Little Wren, one of the album's best songs. Other Feelies Brenda Sauter and Glen Mercer also contribute as does former Voidoid Robert Quine, who adds some minimalist icy sheen to Counterproductive, which is also intriguingly punctuated by a Lightnin' Hopkins vocal sample. On Impossible, another stand-out cut, Guillorn utilises Glen Mercer on lead - the ensuing wash of twang-inflected psychedelia and la la la harmonies, two-and-a-half-minutes of aural heaven in anyone's language. Weightless, in contrast, is hauntingly unnerving, like some lost outtake from Big Star's "Sister Lovers". And there's an excellent version of the great Johnny Thunders song, You Can't Put Your Arms Round a Memory, featuring just Guillorn on acoustic guitar. So if oddly uplifting, folk, blues, country-infused, actoustic semi-electric psychedelic dark pop music is your thing, please say hello to Lys Guillorn, you'll get along just fine.