Chinese singer and songwriter Lexie Liu has released “The Happy Star,” her first full album in three years. In her new 12-track body of work, Lexie takes her iconic, lyrically grungy sound and pushes it to new levels as she takes a deep dive into the hyperpop genre. Throughout this album, Lexie incorporates multiple languages, from Chinese to English to Spanish, and experiments with different emotions and tempos to create something that is simultaneously elevated as much as it is eerie. “The Happy Star” is available now on all digital streaming platforms.

Listen in here: https://open.spotify.com/album/6TncHvvXh96HDGtWGrsNIV

Inspired by the twenty-two Major Arcana from Tarot, each track represents one card from the deck, exploring themes of fate, creation, and the universe’s inherent, cyclical dispositions. While conceiving this album, Lexie plunged into her own spiritual journey to develop something uniquely her own in its sounds and meanings. Through a mystical lens, she seeks the innate beauty and potential of human nature; tapping into musings on our ambition, love, temptation, acceptance, and everything in between.

With its modern techno sound and sitar melodies, ‘FORTUNA’ is a perfect first track. Leading with an 90’s vibe, headlining the production without overworking the music too early on in the track list, this song is about finding our fortunes and feeds into the listener’s curiosity; baiting them into figuring out what the rest of this album has to offer. Closely following the build up in ‘FORTUNA’ is ‘dance dance’, a moody confession about finally being able to dance, free from any external inhibitions and influences. The trance-like haze put forth in ‘dance dance’ cuts short as we’re transported into the electro punk beat ‘3.14159’. Lexie calls out people and their unsolicited opinions, stating that they’ve “got glitter but they ain’t real diamonds.” Her catty lyrics are matched with an energetic, confident tone to round out this air of rebellious freedom that will have you throwing your fists in the air.

‘GANMA’ brings out the haughty, unbothered side out. With an almost chant-like delivery, Lexie’s bass driven rap in the beginning shifts to a lilting realization that since she can’t fall asleep anyways, there’s no point in sticking to routine. One of the more complex compositions in the album, ‘MAGICIAN’ is all about creation and the power to change that which is predestined. ‘DIABLO’ shows us this more sinister side of Lexie’s artistic expression. There’s an art to free-falling, one that Lexie is a master of.

Track 7 marks a turning point having finished her dance with the devil and reveling in chaotic freedom, ‘MIRA’ serves as Lexie’s rediscovery of self. It gathers elements from diverse cultures lyrically, from ‘Tao Te Ching’, ‘The Heart Sutra’ to The Bible. The intense bass line reflects the internal conflict of aggression and passivity, but the classical Chinese instrumentals and her lyrical, whispering vocals towards the end serve as a placid, personal acknowledgement to the answers she’s discovered. Lexie seems to have found peace in ‘Gaia’, by far the most serene track in this album. As the only track on this album that doesn’t stray from a constant, this track is mellow pacing and serves as a nice reprieve from the constant ebb and flow of Lexie’s music. ‘BAD DREAM’ is pure, raw vulnerability. It strips away the high production soundscape packed into the beginning of this album and instead opts for a simpler, soft R&B ballad.

Continuing in this R&B direction, Lexie picks the energy back up with the groovy, afrobeat inspired track ‘RRR’. She’s still pursuing that fortuitous future, but this time Lexie doesn’t mind having someone come along with her. As we near the end of the album, Lexie surprises us with a delicate story of innocent love. In ‘i wanna tell u’, her soft vocals and dream-like melodies wrap around us like a comforting blanket. “The Happy Star” goes full circle in its final track ‘Shanti’, bringing back the techo-infused, retro sounds from the first half of this album and combining it with the softer, uplifting tone of the latter. ‘Shanti’ provides the much needed, final breath of closure in this 12-track journey of an album.

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ABOUT LEXIE LIU

Lexie Liu is a Chinese singer and songwriter creating a new template for pop music stardom, with her tantalizing lyrics, awareness of youth and gen-z culture, and “her provocative sound [that] transcends language barriers,” (i-D Magazine). Thus far, she’s released multiple singles, 2 EPs, and has even been featured as Seraphine in the League of Legends pop sensation “K/DA”, joining the likes of Madison Beer, (G)-IDLE, Kim Petras, Twice, Jaira Burns, and more in this pantheon of artists-turned- champions. According to V Magazine, “Lexie Liu is poised to become the face of a generation of new Chinese artists breaking into the American mainstream with a uniquely cross-cultural sound.”

Connect with Lexie Liu: Instagram | YouTube | Spotify | Twitter | TikTok

Ryan Hicks is a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer from Regina, Saskatchewan. He cites Ron Sexsmith, Father John Misty, and David Bowie as influences.

Hicks makes melodic, cinematic, alt-pop music; as if Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, and Fleet Foxes made music for David Lynch. Fittingly, he took part in a songwriting class taught by Fleet Foxes’ vocalist Robin Pecknold. His new song, “No Life For Me,” was prompted by an exercise that sought inspiration from the line, “I wish I dated a painter.” Rather than romanticize a muse, Hicks wondered and realized, “‘Does the painter approach everything in their life as premeditated, each action anticipating a reaction to manipulate the partner?’ That idea of a ‘perfect’ life is no life for me.”

JSJ (Joshua Säde James) is an emerging Canadian artist who incorporates self-worth and love within his music, with the message that “you are worthy, you are loved, and you are imperfectly you.”

Just because you’re thinking about them does not mean they’re “Thinkin Bout U.” That’s what JSJ learned in penning a love letter to a long distance relationship that only existed through FaceTime and ultimately didn’t last. Craving intimacy, he explores the push and pull between feeling lonely versus feeling completely alone.

JSJ has worked his way from coast to coast in Canada and is now traveling along the Baltic performing all over Northern Europe with Norwegian Cruise Lines. After declaring never again, the hopeless romantic is 6 months into a new relationship, 6000 miles apart. 

Winners of the “Best Live Band” title at the 2022 Mississauga Music Awards, The Jailbirds are a band you need to see live, known for their on-stage heavy hitting sound and their love of a good, loud rock show. 

Their cover version of Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” has become one of their live show staples. Everyone’s familiar with this classic, legendary song, but it was important for the band to make it their own, and not just play it exactly like the original, cause otherwise what’s the point? The band altered some parts, put them through those Jailbirds sound filters, to make it an authentic cover. 

They specifically kept the same tones as some of their other songs like “All I Need” and “Watery Grave,” to make sure this was a recognizable Jailbirds song.

“‘Highway Star’ was the first cover song we learned as a band when starting The Jailbirds,” explains frontman Myke Penney. “In our opinion, it had everything a band needed to be able to do, packed into one song. The solos, the rhythms, the vocals, it’s all there, and it’s all on 11. It proved to be a fun way to get a crowd’s attention as well, especially if they aren’t familiar with our music yet. We frequently start off our setlist with this track, because it’s really one of those songs that people can’t look away from while any band is attempting it to see if they can pull it off.”

Inspired by early instrumental synthesizer music, Brock Geiger and Ian Jarvis are the collaborative duo, Étamine, creating immersive tracks that envelop listeners in a cinematic dream world. With their debut collection of music, lines blur between human and machine, between grounded and celestial, and between introspective-wandering and body clutching grooves. 

Their new song’s title, “Helicopter Takeoff at Night,” was directly inspired by Andreas Feninger’s long exposure photo of a helicopter in the dark. The centrifugal motion of the lights on the blades feels like a perfect representation of the propelled dizziness that this track induces. 

This track, along with the rest of the record was all written and produced by Brock and Ian remotely during the peak of travel restrictions. Étamine had archives of improvised jams with basic setups (a couple synched drum machines and synthesizers) from messing around on the tail end of recording sessions they’d been doing with other bands. With so much time to explore, they dove into some of the sessions and started to realize these improvs might actually have something going on. 

“When Ian sent the first bones of this track to me, it immediately elicited feelings and visuals analogous to a fast paced, high-action film sequence,” says Brock. “The way the main harmony sits against the odd time signature creates a strong forward momentum. When I was writing additional melodies I kept picturing it accompanying a chase scene with neon lights blurring or a Mortal Kombat fight.”