Luna Li, Korean-Canadian multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer and producer, today shares her debut album, Duality, via In Real Life (Liv.e, Peggy Gou, CLIP).
Luna’s universe is hyper lush and inclusive by design. The project of Hannah Bussiere Kim, Luni Li is a blend of indie rock and psych; where experimental neoclassical morphs into pristine pop. Her sound is that of an everyday symphony, crafted from the perspective of the female gaze. When the pandemic started, she 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 video snippet jams have gone 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 theneedledrop’s Anthony Fantano – leading to coverage in PAPER, Complex, i-D, among others, and Japanese Breakfast personally tapping Luna Li as support for her fall 2021 tour. Li also performed on the main stage of 88rising’s Head In The Clouds festival, and was selected as one of NME’s Top 100 Emerging Artists in 2022.
Growing up Korean-Canadian in Toronto, Luna Li was always immersed in art. Her mom ran a music school where a collection of instruments were always within arms reach. She started her classical training on the piano before graduating to violin. When she discovered the harp, she realized that the skills from her formal training were not only transferable, but expansive. She mastered the electric guitar, then learned that adding synths and programming drum loops could unlock a new dimension to her music. An arranger at heart, Li developed a new lexicon for her instruments to communicate with each other. Honing an aptitude for experimentation, she changes her process for each song, recording her first takes and morphing her poems into lyrics.
After dropping out of university after a single semester, she became a mainstay of Toronto’s indie rock scene which lead to the creation of Luna Li. Her forthcoming debut album Duality (featuring Jay Som, Dreamer Isioma, and beabadoobee) wrestles otherworldly ambitions to the ground, and embraces the notions of vulnerability and identity 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. By honing her intuition as an artist capable of taking risks and refining the contours of a melody to best serve the song, Luna Li invites enough space for her ideas to breathe. “The songs never quite have only one feeling,” she says. “Each song had some element of light and dark — where there’s happiness there’s still uncertainty; where there’s anxiety there’s also beauty; and where there’s tension there’s freedom.”
LUNA LI ON TOUR 2022
March 8 – Chop Suey – Seattle, WA
March 9 – Holocene – Portland, OR
March 11 – Popscene at Rickshaw Stop – San Francisco, CA
March 12 – The Echo – Los Angeles, CA
March 13 – Valley Bar – Phoenix, AZ
Mar 15 – 18 – SXSW 2022 – Austin, TX
March 22 – Baby’s All Right – Brooklyn, NY
March 23 – The Lounge at World Cafe Live – Philadelphia, PA
March 25 – Songbyrd – Washington, DC
April 27 – Mills Hardware – Hamilton, Ontario
April 29 – Axis Club – Toronto, Ontario
April 30 – Bar Le Ritz – Montreal, Québec
Duality LP by Luna Li is out now via In Real Life.