lilo - extended (with ber) out now

here's the story of how it came to be...

hey,

Angel Litany (Parallel Lines Edition) EP / Lilo (with Ber) is out now 🌀

this EP re-release is a celebration of the magic that these songs have created this year - all the ‘parallel lines’ that stemmed from them. the last few months have been special. more than ever, I’ve been prioritising putting things into the world that feel right, and the energy I’ve been receiving back has warmed my heart. ‘Lilo’ was kind of the epitome of that. this song wasn’t even part of the EP originally. there was another song I was working on but it didn’t quite feel right. on a whim, I followed my gut and swapped it out for ‘Lilo’. I’m glad I did. the reaction to this song was beautiful. people seemed to relate to it on so many levels, and some even started posting their own covers of it - something that’s never really happened with my music before. one of those people was Ber all the way from Minneapolis - who has since become a dear friend and one of my favourite artists. she heard the song and reached out, and the more we got to know each other the more we found there were so many parallels between us. we were on opposite sides of the world but we had so much in common. all of these little magic moments and coincidences kept happening.

a couple months after ‘Lilo’ came out and seeing everyone’s response to it, I wondered if there was more to this 1m 38s short little song… one day, I sat at my piano and started to imagine where else it could go. I felt I’d said everything I wanted to say, but what if someone else added their side of the story? Ber crossed my mind. she’d told me she loved the song and related to it in her own way, maybe she’d bring another perspective that could really take it to a new place? in that exact moment, my train of thought was interrupted by a text from Ber herself. cosmic timing??? I told her what I was thinking and she just said, “If you’re serious, count me in.”

the craziest part about this whole thing was - she was visiting her childhood home and had just sat down at the piano she grew up with. there was an old lesson book, and she opened it to a page that had the word ‘parallel’ circled, and a melody exercise with the lyrics ‘here is an answer for you’. right at the moment I asked if she’d want to do this with me… this is one example of how everything seemed to be aligning to make this collaboration happen. we didn’t even question it at this point. we just followed the thread and… well, here we are!

we wrote and recorded this extended / alternate version over the internet, and tying it into the rest of the project with the Parallel Lines Edition felt like the perfect way to wrap up and celebrate this era.

we made this music video for it too xx

thank you for an amazing year 💌

much love,

chris