Both Sides of the Moon: Luna Li's Album "Duality"

At any point, wherever I find myself on the ideological spectrum of distrust in coincidence, there will always be music that shows up to cement my belief in perfect timing. Wherever I find the state of the world and however I feel about the act of being in it, there will always be music new to me that I feel overwhelmingly lucky to have. There will always be music like this album, both a product of its time and timeless in its ability to overcome it. And so in a way, here has never been music like this album. Learn how to breathe, how to breathe, how to breathe, chants Luna Li to a world in tentative reemergence and once again I am reminded.

I am reminded that for those of us who have ever felt out of place, who have ever straddled two worlds or drifted in and out of one, music will always provide a home. Luna Li’s debut album is this kind of home. The aptly named Duality settles the conflict between Li’s orchestral

background and rock-oriented heart, among her coexistent conflicting emotions, and within her Korean-Canadian identity. With a virtuosic command of instruments ranging from piano, violin, and harp to electric guitar, bass, and drums, Li creates an otherworldly dreamlike sound, and within it a haven beckoning us to stay awhile.

Luna Li is the stage name of Toronto-based Hannah Bussiere Kim. The project is rich with moon imagery, from her lyrics to her name, a nod to the feminine energy she found lacking in her local music scene as a young artist. The narrative we are given about DIY rock scenes is that they are built around inclusion–that anyone can pick up an instrument and express themself. In reality, this ethos yields more a terrible bands fronted by white, straight, cis, abled men than real diversity. Li learned this lesson early on, and is taking it with her as she grows into a worldwide audience. A major event driving this growth was the six-week tour she took opening for Korean-American artist Japanese Breakfast, who Li credits with one of the first times she felt truly represented on stage. All three guests versus on Duality are by artists of color – beabadoobee, Jay Som, and Dreamer Isioma. "Don’t ask me where I came from, I’m a daughter of the moon", Li sings on Magic, and the song erupts.

If Duality is any one thing, which it isn’t, it is an expansion. Li garnered an audience on social media with her “jams,” TikTok-length interludes of dreamy layered instrumentals, playing all the instruments from her bedroom out of necessity at the height of the pandemic. These culminated in the eponymous jams EP, a ten-song collection that comes to only ten minutes. One of these jams developed into a full-length song for Duality: an early 47-second instrumental version of what is now Flower (In Full Bloom), simply called “flower,” can be heard on the EP. Now, it’s almost 4 minutes long and features guest vocals from rapper Dreamer Isioma. "I trust my feelings", the pair sings, and the truth of this is evident in musical choices throughout the album.

While it seems effortless now, Luna Li’s style has been developing her whole life. Raised by mothers who co-direct a music school, she started learning piano at age five, and spent her first semester of college studying classical violin. Feeling creatively stifled, she dropped out and dove into Toronto’s garage-rock scene. Her taste took a sharp turn at this point, as she rejected violin altogether in favor of a guitar-driven rock sound and began to explore pop.

Released this March, Duality is an expertly crafted reconciliation of all these pasts–from distortion-heavy shredding on Star Stuff, to harp-driven Misery Moon, to R&B jam Alone But Not Lonely. On Cherry Pit, the opening track, Li playfully exaggerates her “duality.” The album starts with a jarring cacophony of guitars and drums that whoosh away as suddenly as they’ve arrived to reveal a minimalistic, cheerful combination of the same two instruments. The rest of the song sits somewhere between these extremes. Alone But Not Lonely is a mantra repeated to oneself, and maybe it is a lie, until it yields completely to a powerful guitar solo as we start to believe it. At last, Li’s intuitive sensibility carves out a genre-bending place to shine. The album could have been named triplicity, quadruplicity, infinity, with increasing accuracy.

The name of Duality stems as much from its lyrical content as its musical style.The songs are grounded in heavy emotions, but situated in a cosmic wonderland–Li superimposes the mundane onto the transmundane. On Afterglow, she sings, "You never believed me when I told you I’m a fairy / I was birthed from a flower feeling all sweet and sour." The message is never just one thing. Li starts out pleading with a partner– "Don’t tell me your lovin’ is dead / No, where’s the glow?–but by the end of the song, she has abandoned this desperation and is doing the leaving herself. You said that you would never leave me / but you denied me of my daydream / Oh how I love you but I need to explore / how to be alone."

What draws me to albums as immersive as this one, aside from fascination with their musical complexity, has maybe always been the home they provide. Li’s experiences, such as being a classically trained rock artist and feeling like she doesn’t quite belong in either Korean or Canadian culture, have taught her that the middle ground does not have to be transitory. Wherever I find myself in the exploration of my own identities, there will always be music to meet me exactly where I am. I wish you’d see the world how I do, Luna Li sings, so I try. Once again I am reminded that in-between is also a noun, and to be present is also a place.

The album closes with Lonely/Lovely, a gorgeous layered orchestral piece. This track, to me, is the culmination of Li’s effort to create a musical space for anyone who’s felt rejected by the real world. The album’s celestial themes aid in this. Luna Li says there is a place for us, there is always a place for us, even if we have to make it ourselves. The closer is a message, a gift. For those finding ourselves on the first side of the slash, something lovely.

Lonely/Lovely has only one lyric, an ethereal vocal singing to us from this otherworldly home. Stare at the sky, Luna Li repeats. Stare at the sky, stare at the sky, stare at the sky, and the song soars as if taking us there.

Photo by: Bella Peterson