Function: Lia Pappas-Kemps’ Interior Mild Shines on ‘Gleam,’ Her Daring & Brash Debut

Rising Toronto singer/songwriter Lia Pappas-Kemps dives into the fiery spirit and uncooked feelings of her debut EP ‘Gleam,’ a daring and brash introduction that aches with the burden of life classes realized the onerous approach.

for followers of Alaska Reid, Del Water Hole, Miya Folick

“Catch Launch” – Lia Pappas-Kemps

“You’re a star, you eat me,” Lia Pappas-Kemps sings at first of her debut EP. “I feel you knew you might seduce me.” Electrical guitars and synths burn shiny alongside the 20-year-old’s voice as she spills her heavy coronary heart and aching soul in music, the devices round her evoking the strain and turmoil inside. “Gasoline, drive of behavior; I at all times need what I can’t have.” Inside seconds, the Canadian singer/songwriter has engulfed her viewers in an intoxicating deluge of spellbinding, emotionally-soaked sonic fervor: Heavy overdrive coats the airwaves with electrical fury whereas the rhythm part maintains a hypnotic beat.

Over all of this musical mayhem, the younger artist rises with a fiery spirit and uncompromising gentle, carrying her wounds like battle scars. Lia Pappas-Kemps’ inside gentle shines on Gleam, a daring, brash, breathtaking, and brutally uncooked debut EP that aches with the burden of life classes on love, loss, and letting go – all of which she’s needed to be taught the onerous approach.

Gleam EP – Lia Pappas-Kemps

Meet me by the flagpole
After bio I need a phrase with you
I do know I used to be gonna reduce you off
However I didn’t imply deep, only a flesh wound

Swan dive into the pond scum
One other evening on the pool corridor
Twilight, sync up our headphones
Dance down the subway platform

Nothing’s gonna cease me leaving
You recognize I need to consider you
Once you’re sitting on the bleachers
Coronary heart in your arms, airing the grievance
I don’t consider you
I don’t consider you

Independently launched November 22, 2024, Gleam stays true to its title as a shimmering, dynamic, and unapologetic drive. Achingly emotive, undeniably immersive, confessional and cathartic, 20-year-old Lia Pappas-Kemps’ debut EP roars with feverish indie rock sonics and irresistible alt-pop melodies, its songs serving as the proper introduction to her burgeoning artistry: A young tempest, able to engulf listeners ears with a sound that’s as smooth as it’s searing, as mild as it’s overwhelming.

Jarring, but dreamy nonetheless; isn’t that what younger maturity itself looks like?

As Pappas-Kemps explains, the songs off her EP had been written during the last two years, as she navigated the top of her teenage years and the transition from adolescence to younger maturity.

“I didn’t actually have an purpose thematically; it was kind of piecemeal,” she tells Atwood Journal. “After a number of years of music accumulation, I collaged the songs that remained near me collectively, and no matter themes offered themselves weren’t essentially intentional. Sonically, I feel I simply needed to seize that shiny, tender teenage feeling in each approach I might.”

“I introduced a number of the songs to some totally different producers, Julian Psihogios, Alex Laurie and Philip Etherington, after which met Nate Ferraro and fleshed out the recordings and completed the EP with him. We recorded it in Toronto in just below two weeks!”

Pappas-Kemps’ EP builds upon the sparse, but impactful introduction she made just some years in the past with the songs “Object at Finest,” “Unhappy in Toronto,” and “Jinx.”

Atwood Journal’s Luke Pettican beforehand praised the “wistful and profound lyricism” of her second single “Unhappy in Toronto,” writing, “The profitable mixture of gently reassuring lyricism and Pappa-Kemps’ ataractic vocal supply makes listening to this monitor really feel like a cathartic expertise.” Three years later, the singer/songwriter proves all of the extra gorgeous, her expressive voice a beacon of visceral ardour and unfiltered feeling.

“I feel Gleam encapsulates the breadth of my songwriting over the previous few years,” Pappas-Kemps displays. “That a part of my course of is at all times morphing and altering too, however this looks like a powerful illustration of that point.”

**She candidly describes the EP as yearnful, hopeful, and gleaming.**

The file’s title, she explains, hails from a music that didn’t survive the check of time, “however I believed in regards to the phrase always after that,” she says. “I discovered myself referencing lightning and beams of sunshine and mirrors and refractions so much all through the EP, so the title felt apt.”

Highlights abound on the journey from the heavy-hitting opener “Star” (and its liberal use of guitar overdrive) to the EP’s dreamy, half-acoustic, half-electric, and all-consuming finale, “A Thousand Instances Over.”

“I feel the third monitor ‘All Mirrors’ is my favorite,” Pappas-Kemps smiles. “I wrote it probably the most lately, so I really feel prefer it’s probably the most true to my present songwriting. It’s about changing into infatuated with somebody and considering telling them how you’re feeling. It’s additionally simply actually enjoyable to play.”

Additional standouts embrace the dramatic desire-fueled “Switchblade,” the deceptively smooth and soul-stirring “Sick-Intentions,” the explosive, emotionally-charged eruption “Simply the Thought,” and the boldly risky, breathtakingly visceral “Catch Launch,” whose Nolan Begley-directed music video can also be premiering on Atwood Journal.

“There are some actually clear photographs lyrically on this music, so the areas kind of fell into place,” Pappas-Kemps says of the visible. “I had some fairly particular inspiration photographs and Nolan and Spencer ran with that and got here up with all of our setups. We shot for 2 days and had a lot enjoyable and I’m so pleased with the way it got here out.”

Whereas this EP is admittedly stuffed with provocative traces and head-turning imagery, it’s the lyrics on the ultimate monitor, “A Thousand Instances Over,” that in the end resonate probably the most for the artist – specifically the final refrain:

Let it’s recognized I’ve buried the heavy hatchet
Sat with the collies and
threw out goals of Manhattan
It used to pour out of me energy ballad
But it surely wasn’t love
When you might get no matter you need
You’d get no matter you need

And whereas there’s definitely a way of fruits, if not conclusion, in these phrases, Pappas-Kemps can also be leaving the doorways extensive open – able to sort out no matter comes subsequent, realizing she’s throw herself headfirst into it and are available out the opposite aspect higher for it.

“I simply hope folks benefit from the music and it brings them pleasure,” Pappas-Kemps shares. “For me, the entire course of actually taught me the right way to vocalize my imaginative and prescient, which was very easy with the crew of individuals I used to be fortunate sufficient to work with. I obtained a lot satisfaction out of bringing these songs to life precisely how I envisioned them. That’s a very particular feeling.”

Expertise the total file by way of our under stream, and peek inside Lia Pappas-Kemps’ Gleam EP with Atwood Journal as she takes us track-by-track by means of the music and lyrics of her debut EP!

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:: stream/buy Gleam right here ::

:: join with Lia Pappas-Kemps right here ::

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Stream: ‘Gleam’ – Lia Pappas-Kemps

:: Inside Gleam ::

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Star

I wrote this music with Julian Psihogos. I had a number of the lyrics written already and he wrote that booming refrain riff and we sat with the demo from that first session for a very long time. In my thoughts we had been going to jot down a refrain and flesh different stuff out, however as I saved listening to the demo, I noticed that that riff spoke for itself, and the music was completed.

Switchblade

“Switchblade” is a music about infatuation and the sensation of wanting to vary for somebody into no matter model of you they need. I wrote it once I was 17 simply me and my guitar and I feel you possibly can really feel these tender teenage emotions threaded by means of it.

All Mirrors

This music I wrote on my own, and it got here actually rapidly. The lyrics and melody kind of simply got here out of a stream of consciousness and what felt good to sing. This music is about changing into infatuated with somebody and considering telling them how you’re feeling.

Catch Launch

This music I wrote a very long time in the past as properly. I had numerous these lyrics written and positioned in different songs and I kind of cherry-picked them and collaged them collectively for this music. I went and made a preliminary demo of it with Philip Etherington and he wrote the riff which grew to become such an essential through-line of the music I feel!

Sick-Intentions

I wrote Sick-Intentions in my dorm room in a single sitting one evening. These lyrics actually simply flew out of me and it felt actually meditative to jot down it. It’s about craving.

Simply the Thought

I wrote this music on my own in my dorm room. It began as a ballad and I’d play it like a kind of meditation, however I by no means felt prefer it was completed. Then I performed it with a band and realized that it was meant to be performed with far more power, and that’s when it clicked.

A Thousand Instances Over

This music is a couple of bunch of various issues and conditions. I had the verses written for a very long time and rewrote the choruses finally and that’s when it clicked. I had most likely dozens of songs with lyrical bits and items of this music for some time, after which this one fell into place.

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