Tyler Lyle

The native genius of desert plants is their ability to survive. Their entire physiology is built around the assumption that water won’t be available every day. Instead they are born into an existence where they are required to draw oceans from the dust. As Tyler puts it “A saguaro cactus can hold a ton of water. The bristlecone pine can live for more than 5,000 years. These succulents by my desk can live through my negligence and the New York Winter. They survive. There is something to be learned here about the virtue of long-suffering.” Thematically, the concept of finding peace in long-suffering is central to Tyler Lyle’s new record. The Native Genius of Desert Plants is a three-and-a-half year introspection that triumphantly sought out a level of understanding in the face of adversity. The album reflects not just on how to make sense of the trials and tribulations we face in life, but on those magic moments that manage to persevere suffering to make life not just livable but an enviable state of being. Born and raised on the Alabama/Georgia line to a working musician father, music was an integral part of Tyler’s life growing up, even if it was reluctantly so at first. Early memories of family trips to Nashville so his father could play the Bluebird Café or attend a songwriting symposium “stealing my vacations away” soured Tyler’s view of a musician’s life. Nevertheless, at age 15 he haphazardly picked up his father’s guitar, quickly mastered a few chords and soon enough was writing his own songs. By 2011 Lyle self released his indie-folk debut The Golden Age & The Silver Girl, which NPR’s World Café named one of the top 10 albums of 2011. ‘The Golden Age & The Silver Girl’ was a singular statement written as an effort at catharsis for Tyler over a break up that conjured up a lot of questions that he had not previously been forced to deal with. Funded by Tyler’s winning of the distinguished ‘Songwriter Shootout’ from the Eddie’s Attic scene in Decatur, Ga (the same scene that launched the career’s of John Mayer, Shawn Mullins and The Civil Wars among many others), the double EP was written over a six-month period and then recorded in a single day. Fittingly, as Tyler completed this effort at coming to terms with an event that had fundamentally changed him, he boarded a plane for Los Angeles the next day to start a new phase of his life. After a two-week stint crashing on the couches of various friends, Tyler took up residence in a Laurel Canyon home once owned by Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. Tyler was reinvigorated by the SoCal sunshine, and it was in this house (where Stevie Nicks is rumored to have written ‘Landslide’) that he would start writing for his next record. If The Golden Age & The Silver Girl was about reckoning with one’s sadness, Tyler’s upcoming follow-up The Native Genius of Desert Plants, is about finally transitioning from dark to light. In contrast to the whirlwind period writing and recording his debut, Tyler was able to take his time to really find his voice on the new album, for which he wrote over 90 songs over four years. Now whittled down to 12 songs, the album maintains an element of eclecticism while speaking from a universal voice of hope and self-discovery. As Tyler puts it “this album is about Survival…the modern condition. How does one survive without meaning? How long can one live without rain/water?” From the subtle immersion into optimism of “Against The Dark” to the more driving, anthemic “Winter Is For Kierkegaard”, Native Sounds is the perfect soundtrack to a cross-country road trip to self-realization. Lyrically, Tyler is just as diverse on the record without losing that air of hopefulness. On “One Beating Heart” he tackles the interconnectivity of all generations and the vastness of the universe as he remembers “the stars growing up in Georgia”. On the gospel-tinged hook of “Ditchdigger”, Tyler is more blatant in celebrating the love he’s found in life with one of the most uplifting refrains of the year “I’ve got sunshine, sunshine all over me. And brown eyes, blue skies are all I see”. The Native Genius of Desert Plants is the rare record that will make one address the bigger picture of the world while simultaneously inspiring them to embrace their own zest for life. Ingrained in this record is the change in perspective that Tyler has developed during his time in Los Angeles. The darkness and cynicism that were largely present in the 25-year-old that moved out west in 2011 has largely dissipated in the 29-year-old man that will be releasing The Native Genius of Desert Plants. The record represents three-and-a-half years of struggle and bliss. “I’ve moved on from a bad relationship. I lost some people close to me – some due to old age and illness, and some to depression and firearms. I was forced to see myself the way record label A&Rs see me and decide whether or not their tight rope is worth walking. I also found a beautiful brown-eyed soul from California with deep roots and high branches who agreed to be my wife. I found a voice that is mine. I found a story to tell. It can be read as dialectic, told from three different lenses, or as a narrative from darkness to light. It can also be read as one single question – one that I ask in earnest and I ask expecting an answer: How do I survive in the desert?” New Album Out Now: hyperurl.co/msvcpy (thank you for your support!)