When I spoke with him, Tilly and the Wall and Flowers Forever musician Derek Pressnall was working his full-time job as a father to his 14-month-old daughter, Willa Sun Pressnall. Duties include "Yo Gabba Gabba" dance parties.    

 

“She likes to dance,” Pressnall says, wrapping up a father-daughter boogie session to Gabba’s “I Like to Dance.” The little one’s interest is fitting — her mother’s Derek’s wife and eminent Tilly tapper, Jamie Pressnall.

   

 

Lately, it’s been less about Tilly and Flowers and more about Icky Blossoms — a new project Pressnall describes as a Flowers Forever offshoot. Floral jargon aside, you can be assured that Tilly is subconsciously thriving. More on that later.      

The Icky project bloomed when Pressnall wrote some Flowers songs with a synthesizer instead of a guitar. As the band continued to write and play the new synth songs at shows, the sound became its own.  

“It just felt like it was something different and it wasn’t Flowers Forever,” he says.

Even with a newfound alias and sound, Pressnall is a little weary to call Icky Blossoms a band, because, well, there is no set band.

“It’s always changing. It’s always evolving,” he says. "It’s always growing or breaking down.”

Among the constants stand Nik Fackler of InDreama, who carries out songwriting duties with Pressnall. Blair native Sarah Bohling (Flowers Forever) provides subtle yet polished lead vocals, with which Fackler and Pressnall harmonize. Conduits and former Eagle Seagull guitarist J.J. Idt has also been a regular player.

It’s a loose-band attitude: Pressnall and Fackler want to collaborate with anyone who can bring a wow-factor.           

“We’re trying to approach it in a more free-form way,” Pressnall says. “Like, ‘Oh, if we wanna work with our friend Teal [Gardner from UUVVWWZ], who’s fucking badass, let’s work with her,’ you know?”

The guys are currently working on a song with miss UU. Look for her vocals on an upcoming Icky track.

But Fackler and Pressnall are seeking more than just guest spots for their tracks. They’ve been “bouncing around town” with their prepared written material, molding their beats. You can hear Faint/Depressed Buttons keyboardist Jacob Thiele’s beats on Icky’s two released songs “Perfect Vision” and “Heat Lightning.”     

I first heard both songs last December right around their Internet introduction on the (still) little-known Icky Blossoms Facebook page (currently 69 likes), and I was honestly floored. It was so apparent that the Icky tracks weren’t something thrown together for the hell of it, and at the time, the band was very much a nonentity, providing just the right amount of intrigue.

“Perfect Vision” exhibits the combined forces of Pressnall, Fackler, Thiele and Idt. At 6:50, it’s a longer track, with a sound Pressnall best describes as “a really hypnotic chainsaw-guitar, swirly song on top of a hypnotic groove.” He says the track was inspired by Beyonce’s song “Diva,” particularly its simple yet groovy, recurring rhythms. He says the shoegazey guitars were a nod to Scottish '80s band The Jesus and Mary Chain.

 

The dance-oriented “Heat Lightning” takes a clearly more upbeat course, and really shows off Bohling’s gentle but strong voice. The two tracks definitely have different approaches and already prove the wide variation Icky can offer.

 

“We’ve recorded a bunch of tracks,” Pressnall says. “We just haven’t finished them up, like a lot of them just need to be wrapped up.”

Expect some call-and-response style songs, featuring Bohling and her two male counterparts. They’re scheduled to resume recording today (Feb. 14). Fackler will return to town from L.A., where he splits his time as a filmmaker. Pressnall’s longtime friend, David Matysiak of the CoCoArt collective and band Coyote Bones out of Atlanta, will join them.

Check out 2010’s holiday sampler from CoCoArt, featuring Icky Blossoms

Icky Blossoms plays its first show April 15 at the Slowdown with Conduits, InDreama and Touch People (featuring an elusively costumed local performer).

Pressnall says the four bands are going big with a double release of two 7-inch splits. The bands have yet to decide who’s splitting with whom.

While Pressnall seems to be enjoying his father duties at home, future family time is shaping to overlap with band practice — because Tilly is back.

Our favorite heel-to-toe tappers are working on their fourth album and first recording since 2008’s O, for which Pressnall's currently writing songs. Unfortunately, a done-date is still too uncertain:

“It’s really early stages,” he says. “We’re just writing songs right now and passing them back and forth.”