This show is at Union Stage
740 Water Street SW
Washington, DC 20024
Luna Li is more than a musical project. It’s a world unto itself, and a kingdom of its creator’s making. For the Korean-Canadian, Toronto-based multi-instrumentalist songwriter, composer, and producer Hannah Bussiere Kim, the universe of Luna Li is hyperlush and inclusive by design. It’s an evolving, musical transmission that takes its cues from nature’s healing properties to explore vulnerability and identity. A blend of indie rock and psych; where experimental neoclassical morphs into pristine pop, Luna Li is the sound of an everyday symphony, crafted from the perspective of the female gaze.
When the pandemic started, Li started self-recording instrumental interludes as a radical form of care. By letting others into spontaneous moments of creation, she made her process transparent and communal. Her self-recorded “jams” — video snippets of her constructing beats piecemeal — went viral many times over, racking up over 8 million streams and producing a fiercely loyal following. Its resulting self-titled EP garnered widespread acclaim (“Why aren’t people queuing up to buy beats from this person?,” asked The Needle Drop’s Anthony Fantano.) and led to coverage in Fashion, Paper Magazine, i-D and a slot opening for Japanese Breakfast. In 2021 Li performed on the main stage of 88rising’s “Head In The Clouds” festival, and in 2022 was selected as one of NME’s Top 100 Emerging Artists.
Luna Li’s debut record Duality (featuring Jay Som, Dreamer Isioma, and beabadoobee) wrestles intimate, otherworldly questions to the ground in order to better understand the collective. Capable of both detonating an incendiary riff, or slipping into the splendor of celestial strings, the album’s power lies in its most delicate moments. “Each song on the album has some element of light and dark,” Luna Li says. “Where there’s happiness there’s still uncertainty; where there’s anxiety there’s also beauty; and where there’s tension there’s freedom.”
Introducing Jahnah Camille (pronounced “Hannah”), a young artist emerging from the DIY scene of Birmingham, Alabama. Camille’s songs capture the rollercoaster of teenage angst, heartbreak and introspection over a well-made bed of driving guitars and catchy, compact melodies. A five-track EP infused with anxiety and grit, i tried to freeze light, but only remember a girl, is a shining introductory project smoothed over by Camille’s sugar-sweet voice and cutting lyricism.
Much of the EP’s songs were written and recorded while Camille was still in high school, taking trips back and forth from Atlanta to record. In the time following, Camille dug into the local DIY scene, steadily gaining an impressive resume of opening slots as she cut her teeth supporting acts like Clairo, Soccer Mommy, Cryogeyser and Wednesday as they came through town.
Now 19 years old, Camille delivers an excellent snapshot of those uncertain and wildly hopeful late teen years. i tried to freeze light captures Camille approaching heartbreak and self-perception from a variety of angles–each track playing slightly with genre and cadence and infused with influence from her musical heroes, like Liz Phair and Fiona Apple.
The EP pulls at a range of alternative rock and pop threads, there’s the 90s alternative rock opener “flesh” and the country-gaze-tinged “roadkill.” Camille then softens on the swooning synth-layered ode to love lost, “elliot,” before relaxing into a folksy, acoustic “paper doll.”I wanna talk and not spill out carnival sounds” Camille confides on closer “carnival sounds”–a track that illuminates the singer’s art-pop influences and knack for revealing tender and at times searing admissions through her lyricism.
While misunderstandings color the emotional sentiment of the EP, Camille’s artistry and expression come through clear as day on i tried to freeze light, presenting her as a promising young voice with real talent and a hunger for musical experimentation.
740 Water Street SW
Washington, DC 20024