Hashtag Magazine

View Original

Blair Lee is peacefully caught in the in-between on new EP 'LIMBO'

BLAIR LEE IS PEACEFULLY CAUGHT IN THE IN-BETWEEN  ON NEW EP LIMBO — STREAM

FLOATS THROUGH A NIGHT OUT WITH FRIENDS IN OFFICIAL VIDEO FOR  “DON’T WANNA LEAVE” — WATCH 

Today, Toronto’s budding lyricist Blair Lee releases her second EP LIMBO. With her light touch of the pen, Lee crafts a sonic universe unbound by gravity. A masterclass in extracting the hopeful from the mundane, the six-song offering draws the curtains back to reveal a period of time for feeling caught in the in-between — Stream

Simply put, she says, “‘LIMBO’ is all about the in-between, indecision, looping, stalling, being stuck.”

Today’s EP arrives alongside an official video for “Don’t Wanna Leave.” Having written this song on her birthday last year during a phase where she was staying out too late, Lee admits that the song is, “about not wanting a night to end, but my friends would argue it was about my relationship at the time. Maybe it’s both.” In the video, Lee is spending a casual night out at the restaurant/bar she works at with friends and coworkers. It’s the kind of night that feels small at the time, but ends up being a moment you always look back on — Watch

Prior to LIMBO Lee made her intro to the world with her debut EP The Puppy Game. Two Story Melody remarked “Canadian singer-songwriter Blair Lee has the potential to be one of the all-time greats – right up there with Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon” and Beats Per Minute claimed that her music has “Beatles-like brilliance.” With her humble beginnings tossing her name in the same sentence as the biggest names in music, there’s no ceiling on where Lee’s accessible yet transcendent lyricism will take her. 

Her early work has also seen editorial support from Spotify’s indie pop+chill, New Music Friday US and Canada, Fresh Finds and Fresh Finds Indie, as well as Apple Music’s New in Alternative, New Music Daily and Breaking Alternative. Early adopters on the press-front include The Line of Best Fit, Unpublished Magazine, The Luna Collective, Sheesh and many others. 

ABOUT BLAIR LEE

With Blair Lee’s light touch, even the heaviest subjects can float.

The artist’s poetic lyrics make complex and contradictory emotions sound obvious. She uses songs as containers to explore existential concepts like loneliness, aging and mortality. But then, she shrugs.

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.


For more information on Blair Lee, please visit:

Spotify | Instagram | YouTube | Apple Music | Facebook | TikTok