Luna Li

The whimsical, wildly talented Korean-Canadian artist Luna Li’s sophomore album, When a Thought Grows Wings, is a snapshot of its creator in flux. For the 27-year-old, born Hannah Bussiere Kim, the journey was tumultuous, pivotal, and necessary: she split with her partner of eight years, left her hometown of Toronto for LA, and found her world opening up in new ways.

“It was really me discovering who I was as an adult for the first time,” she says. “I was really stepping into my own and taking my life into my own hands.”

Li — who first started playing piano at five, now plays violin, guitar, bass, drums, mini-harp, flute — cut her teeth in Toronto’s live music scene, but won over a new legion of fans during the pandemic posting solo bedroom jams, playing every instrument, cut together to create soothing, noodly grooves. Li’s 2022 debut LP, Duality, featured Jay Som, beabadoobee, and Dreamer Isioma, established her mode for creating cinematic dream-pop, and garnered a Juno Award nomination for Alternative Album of the Year. But while the record in part explores her mixed heritage and interiority, Li now concedes its lyrics are “shrouded, poetic, and pretty vague,” adding “I think it feels more exciting to me now to connect with people in a really direct way.”

With tours opening for Japanese Breakfast, Wolf Alice, and beabadobee under her belt, and working with producers Monsune (SZA, Drake) and Andrew Lappin (L’Rain), When a Thought Grows Wings is a sonic and emotional level-up. Weaving her harp-rippled, baroque-pop through with jazz flute and gritty riffs, the album is a testament to Luna Li’s prowess as a charismatic frontperson, songwriter, arranger, and continuously curious multi-instrumentalist. A portrait of Hannah Bussiere Kim on her journey, ever-evolving, the lines between Li and Kim artfully and deliberately blurred.