Toronto’s budding lyricist Blair Lee’s poetic lyrics make complex and contradictory emotions sound obvious. She uses songs as containers to explore existential concepts like loneliness, aging, and mortality. This transitory approach makes the emotional material of her songs palatable and pleasant, and it takes listeners on a journey that no other artist could create. Lee meanders through place, dream, feeling and memory, stitching together connections that other eyes would not see. While the locations and emotions that Lee’s music describes may be familiar, her outlook is not. The light touch she brings to every subject feels like it comes from someone viewing their own life from 10,000 miles above.
The result is the opposite of melodrama. Lee’s dreamy alternative pop songs drive themselves slowly, never rushing, to a core feeling that swells at the chorus and falls back at every verse. While many of Lee’s melodies are nostalgic, reminiscent of the 1990s, the imagery in her lyrics — of alleyways, full moons, and strangers taking photographs — are distinctly modern. Despite the dawdling pace, the movement in Lee’s imagery can leave listeners someplace they didn’t expect to be. A door closes, the earth turns, and she keeps moving.
The artist has just released “Grow,” the fourth single from her newly announced EP, LIMBO available in full on April 19. “Grow” pulls something hopeful out of the mundane; leisurely but with intent. Lee’s fluid, breathy vocals exhale life into an introspective thought, but she isn’t bogged down by it.“‘Grow’ is about the twists and turns of life,” shares Lee. “Thinking that you’re off course as life changes and goes through cycles, but learning that you’re right where you wanna be after all.”
Stream the track here
Photos by Eric Richards
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