Chicago Looks is proud to present a collaboration with some of the city's most stylish inhabitants, who will be sharing their views on all things aesthetic.
Today is Liz Eckland's turn. Liz is a multidisciplinary artist and a treasure hunter - check some of her beautiful finds on Etsy. She made a special Valentine's Day YouTube playlist dedicated to the blog. Press play and enjoy her mellow selection - also listen to her previous mixtape here.
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Besides selecting cool tunes Liz also makes them - along with her sweetheart Harry in a duo called Hirself. Get inspired by their heavenly compositions here and read a bit of their love story below:
When Harry met Liz
"I was 16 and he was 17. We were both vacationing with our families on a cruise...I think it was Holland America. We traveled the coastal cities along the Baltic Sea on a massive floating hotel. During the days spent at sea, I remember seeing Harry and immediately wanting to talk to him. I was so shy back then, still am mostly. I feel like there was a trippy psychedelic walkway of lights leading up to panoramic discotheque. Maybe not, but let's say that there was. This is where I met Harry. Our Conversation was drunk, brief, but left an impression and that was it. We exchanged email addresses and began writing to one another back and forth, giving updates and sharing music, dreams, poems, news etc. And this went on for 10+ years, sometimes only only a handful of times each year. Last year, Harry emailed me asking if he could come and visit me in Chicago and I said yes. He was working as a grower for an organic farm outside of Leeds. We would send each other cassette tapes and talk on Skype and then he booked his flight. We only met that one time and like I said briefly, on a cruise ship, on the Baltic Sea. But we both admittedly thought about each other over the years. He stayed with me for two weeks and during that time, we played music together. He came out again for 2 months for my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. He brought his autoharp, delay and reverb pedals, and bought a Fostex 4 track cassette tape recorder and studio quality tapes from Andy's Music on Belmont. I repaired my brothers broken electric guitar and bought a really cheap amp. We had no idea what we were doing, and we still don't really. Although Harry is a phenomenal drummer and taught me how to play the drums, we are both still learning. We made trips by train up to my dad's house (since it's on the market, it's empty, and has amazing acoustics) and record the guitar and the Clavinova through the Moogerfooger. It was magical. And it still is, even though he had to return to the UK. So I am here and he is there, and we are stll recording music together 3,873 miles away from one another. He'll record drums, guitar, kalimba, keyboard in Leeds and I will write lyrics, record vocals, guitar, and midi keyboard and put the wav files together. We need to learn more about production/sound engineering, or find someone who can help us mix our track properly. But it's funny how natural and tangible our connection feels through music even with all this physical distance between us. I am hoping to visit him in the Spring and he will be back in Chicago in the summer. And well...that's it.
Liz and Harry making it happen. The end...for now."
Awwwwwwwwwwww... hope to be featuring them together here in Chicago soon! In the meantime see Liz's fab looks here, here and here.
