Luckily for local fans, she returns Feb. 15 to showcase her solo music with an 8 p.m. concert at Eddie’s Attic, the Decatur venue known as a proving ground for acoustic musicians bound for national fame.
“The solo album is something I wanted to do for a long time,” Tylan says. “I was writing a lot of songs that never made it onto Girlyman albums, just because with three songwriters and only 12 songs on an album, you do the math.”
The first single on her solo album, “Already Fine,” is a slow-burn acoustic duet with Amy Ray that highlights Tylan’s introspective lyrics and strong vocals. Girlyman’s first CDs were released on Ray’s Daemon Records label, and Tylan credits Ray for taking the band “under her wing.”
Asked how a Tylan song differs from a Girlyman song, “For Girlyman, our focus has always been on tight vocal harmonies and really creative arrangements,” she reflects.
“It’s not that the songs haven’t been important, but I think really what we had was the synergy and sort of an alchemy that brought together these different elements and created these harmonies and arrangements,” Tylan continues.
“With my solo work, my focus has really been on the songwriting. It is just kind of a switching of gears.”
And while she acknowledges that “the word is probably overused in folk and Americana circles,” Tylan also describes her solo work as more “intimate.”
“It is more raw and pretty exposed, but I am enjoying that feeling and contrast,” she says.
The fate of Girlyman
The move signals a time of transition for Girlyman, which has taken a hiatus from touring. Fellow member Nate Borofsky is also working on a solo CD, and the three members minus Tylan — Borofsky, Doris Muramatsu and JJ Jones — are planning a children’s album.
“Where we all are right now is we are not making some huge decision about the fate of Girlyman, we are just all concentrating on exploring other projects,” Tylan says.
“The three founding members have put all of our creative energy into this for a decade now, so it is important personally and artistically to branch out and try other things,” she adds. “It definitely feels right to me.”
The very name “Girlyman” constantly raised questions about sexual orientation and gender, and Tylan describes herself as “definitely gay; very, very gay.”
“I have always been out about it, and I love that is is becoming favored to be out,” she says.
Tylan doesn’t believe her sexual orientation has had a negative impact on her music career but adds, “I think it is probably more my gender presentation.”
“I obviously was in a band called Girlyman for 10 years, and some people I was told wouldn’t even come to our shows because of our name — and that was before they saw what I look like,” she says.
The term “Girlyman” might fit Tylan perfectly — or not at all. She is neither particularly girly nor a man, and yet she also blends the two.
“My gender expression is pretty masculine. I generally wear a jacket and tie,” she says. “I think through the years, some people thought, ‘That music is not for me,’ but other people — who are either queer or open-minded or heard the music first — were drawn in and realized that it doesn’t matter what people look like; it’s great when people look different, and not everyone has to look the same.”