Toronto-based alt singer-songwriter Lia Pappas-Kemps has released her debut album, Winged.
Released via Coalition Music, Winged is Lia Pappas-Kemps’ next step in her journey to create resonant, cinematic music with her distinctive voice, lyrics, and production.
At just 21 years old, Lia Pappas-Kemps has spent a while now carving out a space for herself as an alternative voice to watch, utilizing her penchant for interesting chord progressions and similarity to artists like Joni Mitchell and Laura Marling. Her previous release, the EP Gleam, set forth her intentions for her burgeoning career – and Winged is here to solidify the influence and accolades that are no doubt coming her way.
The first thing you notice when listening to Winged is the maturity of Lia Pappas-Kemps’ sound, and how her music is laced through with a combination of hope and sadness that creates a complex picture.
Opening up with the almost-dissonant “The Hunches,” Winged starts off equal parts Elliott Smith and Rilo Kiley as Lia Pappas-Kemps sings “his cheeks like rubies/flushed and bruising.”
There’s something deeply melancholic about this track, which the lyrics themselves point to, as a gentle yet complex guitar melody loops in the meantime. It’s a delicate way to start off Winged, but it works.
It quickly moves into the lead track, the previously released “Reservations,” which perfectly shows off Lia Pappas-Kemps’ rich vocals and ever-interesting chord work. “Reservations” is definitely one of the more straightforward tracks on the album, much more of a typical love song, even while Lia Pappas-Kemps still shows off her quirky tonal work.
One thing Lia Pappas-Kemps really excels at is her interesting use of rhythm for her vocal performances, which is shown off well through every track on the album, with a particular moment on “Two-Step.” It’s an almost old-school country crooner style, which feels particularly lovely in comparison to the richness of Lia Pappas-Kemps’ vocals, even when she’s half-whispering.
The most recently-released single, “Towers,” is very much a special moment right in the middle of the album. Lia Pappas-Kemps forlornly sings “you had eyes for another,” and the instrumentation is similarly intense alongside this evocative phrase. There are electronic elements added in, as well as feedback noises, and the final third of the track sees the vocals echoed and repeated back as if Lia Pappas-Kemps is losing herself in the misery and confusion of experiencing this. This track is also electric guitar-forward, in contrast to the rest of the album’s acoustic sensibilities.
Having written the song alongside her cousin, Lia Pappas-Kemps said: “[Towers] began with a demo that we listened to incessantly. Re-recording it was a pain because we became so attached to the demo, and eventually we ended up keeping most of those original elements. It’s about the tipping point of a relationship, when everything feels like it’s slipping. The last-ditch effort to preserve what you had with someone.”
Winged is, overall, a very beautiful album. It’s delicate and well-considered, and this delicate nature comes through best on the track “Eight Chambers,” which features sad steel guitar and a very minimal drum beat until about halfway through, when another layer of echoing guitar comes in with some added brass instruments before fading back out to its minimal beginnings again. It’s so slow it almost feels hypnotic, and in addition to the consistent use of vocal acrobatics Lia Pappas-Kemps is capable of, it feels like some kind of alternate-universe lullaby where instead of lulling someone asleep, you gently fill them with dread to keep them awake.
This quiet beauty, of course, doesn’t mean that Winged doesn’t have its more intense moments. “Eight Chambers” is immediately followed up with “Wound up and Coiling,” which is exactly how it sounds – it loops, spiralling and tense, with bursts of clashing guitars and cymbals before easing back down into its frenetic, but quieter, bass-forward melody. This track particularly makes good use of Lia Pappas-Kemps’ favouring of chromatic notes in her vocals, which creates something evocatively off-putting. There’s a real sense of creeping dread about this song – that is, until the creeping dread explodes and becomes unavoidable. Somehow, this track has one of the lowest playcounts on the whole album, which is a real shame – it might be difficult, but it deserves to be heard and appreciated.
There are moments where Winged slips into elements of progressive rock, both rhythmically and melodically, and it’s both interesting and refreshing to see these elements alongside Lia Pappas-Kemps’ alt-rock vocal style and folk-tinged guitar playing. One place these prog elements pop up particularly is the end of “Orchid,” which almost sounds like 80s-era King Crimson if their style had leaned a little more into math rock.
Closing out Winged are the tracks “Moths” and “How do I get to you?”
“Moths,” particularly, feels like a straightforward admission of romantic pain than any other song on the album, as Lia Pappas-Kemps sings “you promised me that our love was deep as Lake Superior/but now it’s lost on you it seems/you effortlessly wing away to some delirium”. It has a very real, quiet sadness to it, which is only compounded by “How do I get to you?”, as Lia Pappas-Kemps laments: “I cannot say what it is I feel/it is not real to you/and I cannot make sense of any of it/but it is routine for you.”
This sense of heartbreak is like a dull ache, throbbing and constant, exemplified by the soft acoustic guitar and background slide guitar, giving “How do I get to you?” a very dreamy feel. It feels like something is escaping Lia Pappas-Kemps’ grasp, but all the same, she is still desperate to experience it.
Winged is an album of contrasts, but the through line is always Lia Pappas-Kemps’ depth of emotion, both in her vocal performances and her lyrical storytelling. It’s a real treat to listen to someone sing like she does, because it feels like she’s so talented but still has so much room to grow even more into her chosen musical styles.
Lia Pappas-Kemps has been touted as one to watch, and it seems doubtful that anyone who listens to Winged could argue with that.
