NAME:
LIA LIA
ABOUT
LIA LIA wears fragility like armor, writing lyrics that feel like dispatches from the front lines of girlhood — confessional, confrontational, and often as intimate as 3:00 AM text messages with a finger trembling over "send". Dressed in her uniform: a white shirt, black tie and pleated skirt, LIA LIA wields cuteness as her weapon, while moving between extremes. Tear-sogged fries sit beside cosmic yearning and bratty, defiant rage collides with the fragile blossoming of romance. Written across the night skies of Berlin, New York, and Los Angeles, LIA LIA’s debut album Armor is a love letter to life in all its vulnerability.
Born into a family of painters— her father Chinese, her mother German, LIA LIA grew up between a suburban German town steeped in the residues of Romanticism and Grimm fairytales, and the sprawling Chinese metropolis of Chengdu, where pearlescent white skies stretch above mountains, skyscrapers and teahouses filled with sugar cane lollipops. The influences of Sichuan Opera intertwine with German chorales, floating in the dust-moted air of churches and the fumes of oil paint and turpentine. At home in both worlds and none, to counter a reality that didn’t hold the weight of her inner world, LIA LIA began building her own—through music, photography, art and film—within the realms of her teenage bedroom.
Venturing as far and as fast as she could—skimming through Tokyo, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Paris, and London—LIA LIA opened for Doja Cat and supported Duran Duran on their homecoming UK arena tour. Eventually she landed in New York at the invitation of world-renowned contemporary artist Anne Imhof, and entered the world of DOOM, a 3 hour large-scale, immersive performance art piece blending theater, dance, skating, and music featuring over 50 performers commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory. Performing alongside an all-star cast featuring Korn’s Munky, actress Talia Ryder, artist and musician Eliza Douglas, top model Sihana Shalaj, contemporary dance star Toon Lobach, prima ballerina Devon Teusch, photographer Tess Petronio, poet Coco Gordon Moore, skater Efron Danzig, and writer and model Jakob Eilinghoff, LIA LIA encountered a scene that felt strangely familiar: a collapsing high school, a prom night at the end of time. In the whirlwind of a city taken by storm, romances blossomed, new friendships spilled from the stage into karaoke bars and late-night diners; she found the chosen family she had long been searching for. Between shy glances, caught in reflections in cases of pinned butterflies, hands longing to touch under one umbrella, LIA LIA fell in love. No longer the moth drawn to flame, she became the light herself.
Together with guitarist Luke Knight and producer Jonathan Visger, LIA LIA began writing her debut album Armor, a process she described as ”dancing with eyes closed to a melody which only yet exists in our subconsciousness." Floating, crackling acoustic guitars fold into distorted shoegaze walls and transform into glistening, chorus-soaked melodies that shimmer with bittersweet weight in an intimate duet with LIA LIA’s raw and unprocessed vocals, recorded so close that the intake of breaths becomes part of the melody. A band-driven core, anchored by pulsing live drums and throbbing bass, collides with the mechanical heartbeat of roaring modular textures, analogue drum machines, playful vocal glitches and swelling synths that cast a nostalgic glow. An echo of the restless pulse of a city that never sleeps, dissolving until only voice, guitar, and breath remain.
ExpandBorn into a family of painters— her father Chinese, her mother German, LIA LIA grew up between a suburban German town steeped in the residues of Romanticism and Grimm fairytales, and the sprawling Chinese metropolis of Chengdu, where pearlescent white skies stretch above mountains, skyscrapers and teahouses filled with sugar cane lollipops. The influences of Sichuan Opera intertwine with German chorales, floating in the dust-moted air of churches and the fumes of oil paint and turpentine. At home in both worlds and none, to counter a reality that didn’t hold the weight of her inner world, LIA LIA began building her own—through music, photography, art and film—within the realms of her teenage bedroom.
Venturing as far and as fast as she could—skimming through Tokyo, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Buenos Aires, Paris, and London—LIA LIA opened for Doja Cat and supported Duran Duran on their homecoming UK arena tour. Eventually she landed in New York at the invitation of world-renowned contemporary artist Anne Imhof, and entered the world of DOOM, a 3 hour large-scale, immersive performance art piece blending theater, dance, skating, and music featuring over 50 performers commissioned by the Park Avenue Armory. Performing alongside an all-star cast featuring Korn’s Munky, actress Talia Ryder, artist and musician Eliza Douglas, top model Sihana Shalaj, contemporary dance star Toon Lobach, prima ballerina Devon Teusch, photographer Tess Petronio, poet Coco Gordon Moore, skater Efron Danzig, and writer and model Jakob Eilinghoff, LIA LIA encountered a scene that felt strangely familiar: a collapsing high school, a prom night at the end of time. In the whirlwind of a city taken by storm, romances blossomed, new friendships spilled from the stage into karaoke bars and late-night diners; she found the chosen family she had long been searching for. Between shy glances, caught in reflections in cases of pinned butterflies, hands longing to touch under one umbrella, LIA LIA fell in love. No longer the moth drawn to flame, she became the light herself.
Together with guitarist Luke Knight and producer Jonathan Visger, LIA LIA began writing her debut album Armor, a process she described as ”dancing with eyes closed to a melody which only yet exists in our subconsciousness." Floating, crackling acoustic guitars fold into distorted shoegaze walls and transform into glistening, chorus-soaked melodies that shimmer with bittersweet weight in an intimate duet with LIA LIA’s raw and unprocessed vocals, recorded so close that the intake of breaths becomes part of the melody. A band-driven core, anchored by pulsing live drums and throbbing bass, collides with the mechanical heartbeat of roaring modular textures, analogue drum machines, playful vocal glitches and swelling synths that cast a nostalgic glow. An echo of the restless pulse of a city that never sleeps, dissolving until only voice, guitar, and breath remain.