Last summer, my friends and I almost died on a Boundary Waters trip because of a dumb decision I had made during a storm, and it left me feeling really vulnerable and broken by the forces of our planet. That rupture gave me reason to write this song about how infinitely comforting, powerful, and terrifying nature can be, and how it's our responsibility to unconditionally care for the planet it in the same way it cares for us. If we don't, it will hold us accountable in sometimes painful ways, and lying within that balance between care and destruction is what makes us whole.

Make You Whole

Recorded live on May 21st, 2022 at Art-A-Whirl®.

Your Lies Are Like Rivers - Live

See How She Moves: Power Outage Edition, pt. 1 & 2 - Live

Give Yourself Up To Yourself - Live

Rant more, quit yer job, love your friends, keep your job if you need to, but please keep your sanity, and at the very least please don't dress like a normie

Same Damn Door

Mitch Van Laar of Dilly Dally Alley makes his songwriting debut with "That I'm pretty," a song that evolved from a melody he had been patiently waiting to utilize for years. Following the second date with his girlfriend, Mitch felt an irresistible pull toward the piano, and at long last, that melody found its meaning. Weeks of experimentation followed as he tirelessly explored different melodies and harmonies, with his patient roommate bearing witness to the extremely repetitive but passionate process. The song ends with a powerful chorus repeating the lyric "When you said that I'm pretty" referring to a transformative memory of Mitch's girlfriend telling him that she thinks that he is pretty. Midway through the song, Dilly's horn section Mitch Van Laar and Denny Carlson features a winding, electrifying melody that originated during Mitch's college days when he lived in an apartment above a garage.

That I'm Pretty

Dilly Dally Alley is a queer femme-led, Minneapolis-based band eternally seeking out the perfect groove. Think indiefunk and neosoul, but they also like to wrap you with something extra warm and cozy. They got started in May of last year with an Art-A-Whirl debut, and have since been taking the Twin Cities by storm with meaning-filled crowd games, vivacious solos, and other joyful nonsense. Their performances have been described by press as “a hoot of horns, a fire of funk, and just what the neosoul needed,” and they hope their community organizing taps into human universals that inspire the Twin Cities to care for their communities, their biomes, and their world.

Their debut album, Make You Whole (out Friday, May 12th), is jam-packed with infectious grooves and upbeat shuffles, but its lyrics also dig into what vulnerable strongholds of comfort remain in our fracturing world. It grapples with different strands of rejection (of the queer self, of the turbulent forces of our planet, of our loved ones), how our brokenness after rejection can form a patchwork of strength and wisdom, and how our beauty lies in the very fibers of this vulnerability. Especially when you’re dancing to these tunes about it.

Dilly Dally Alley

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