Effortless Lyricist Blair Lee Releases 'Grow'

Toronto's budding lyricist Blair Lee releases “Grow,” the fourth single from her newly announced EP.

She today also shares that LIMBO will be 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 — Stream. 

“‘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.”

So far off of her anticipated second EP, Lee has released “Underdog,” “Fold” and “Same Place.” These singles followed her 2022 debut EP The Puppy Game. Her intro to the world saw Two Story Melody remark “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 claim 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 Early adopters on the press-front include The Line of Best Fit, Unpublished Magazine, The Luna Collective, Sheesh and many others.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.

photo by Eric Richards

To post a comment, you must register and login.