Lexie Liu

Thank you! After releasing my third album Happy Star, I had a huge creative block for three years. During that block I was kind of sketching and scribbling. I was like, okay I’m not going to overwhelm myself or make some grand story. Happy Star was big and conceptual and I had built an entire world around it. I wanted something more down to earth and lowkey, I was thinking of a diary of a teenager and that’s how it started. I wanted to take all of these moments and put them together in a way that was cool and in a more diva, dance style.

So, I grew up in Changsha, China listening to the 2000s pop icons like Gaga, Britney, Rihanna, Kesha, Fergie — all of those stars from the US across the ocean from me. I was singing songs in English that I could barely understand but I would carry my blue iPod nano covered in stickers and I would listen to it in the school hallways, dorm rooms, bus rides, always in my headphones because in school we were not allowed to use any electronic devices so I would have to hide all the wires behind my hair (laughs). I’d zip my top up to my neck and that would be my secret date with these pop divas in my teenage years.
They really showed me what being a woman was like, for me to imagine. I imagined a version of femininity that was very comprehensive of things I felt in their music, but most of the time I was studying, being a very normal Chinese junior and high school student.

In our junior high, all the girls have to have short hair. Not all schools are like this, but some are pretty strict on how you should look, how you should behave, so we grew up in a very competitive environment. You’re under a lot of pressure from the school and from your parents, they expect a lot from you and you expect a lot from yourself.

Yeh, I was living a double life. On one hand, I was trying to get into good schools in the US because I wanted to go to college in the US. So, I was doing TOEFL and SAT and stuff, but it's honestly a lot easier than Gaokao which is basically how Chinese high school students get into college. It’s very intense, very competitive.
Sometimes, I would record music on the weekends on my phone and upload it online which is how I got my initial fanbase when I was in junior high. When I was in high school, I started to go to these  underground parties and hang out with the rappers, live house shows and I would just go there, that was a part of where I grew up.

My high school was kind of international, it’s not the kind of international school we know, it was kind of like Chinese school international leaning.

Yeh. I really appreciated that my parents transferred me to the international department of our school, it was renowned and competitive.  The normal side of school, Gaokao, was where 90% of students were. I was there for the first month but I was too stressed out, I was having panic attacks and I was crying every weekend because I was preparing for Gaokao and SATs and it was double the pressure. I wanted to choose one. I went to the international department where it was a lot chiller so I got to breathe.

Yeh, exactly.

Since my EP 上线了 Gone Gold a couple years ago, I was kind of dictating (laughs). I was in this girl boss energy of let’s do this now, wanting to be in control of the details and the way I wanted it to look. I feel like I want to let myself breathe a bit and I wanted people to be involved in this project. I wanted to let other people contribute more, others have great ideas too. I’m finding the equilibrium.
I would say collaborations happened more naturally. I knew some of the people from the music I had released before, people I had worked with for a long time. But this time for the past year, I spent some time in London and LA so I got some time to meet new people and do sessions with them and something good came out of that. I’m trying to show a more connected, global idea. I started talking to producer nicopop through Instagram, I found him through Slayyyter’s tracks. I was like wow this is sick production I really want to work with this person.

I think it's his aesthetic of his y2k, unapologetic diva. I wanted to bring that back to 2025. The people that I used to work with, sometimes we’d work on stuff that had different vibes, I wanted the inner McBling girl (laughs). They're a more masculine kind of men…

I met Trinidad [Cardona] on Instagram. I think we started following each other then checked out each other’s music and then we were like okay, are we friends now? I said, I want to make a project that's more international based and he was happy to help me with that so next time I was in LA we met up and we had a great time writing together and he’s my age so we’re really just friends hanging out in the studio which was really fun.

Thank you.

I think part of it was the influence from the 2000s pop divas. From their music, I realised they could be so bold and sensual, slaying but unapologetically vulnerable in what they show to the world. I felt it was something to honour instead of hide from the world. It takes a lot of courage to do that.
When I was young, I thought to myself, in the future, when I grow up, I want to be one of those women. I think it gave me the courage to open up about personal feelings; at the end of the day, we all share similar feelings at certain stages of life, and it's a beautiful thing to experience that connection with people through music.

I would say don’t stress, it’s not that important. Y’know, when I look back to myself as a teenager I was not chill at all, a little uptight. With every exam that comes, decisions, the pressure can be hard. You’re always told it’s so important, that the second half of your life is going to be determined. Sometimes it felt too dramatic, music was kept apart from that.

I had the most fun working on the demo of Cigarette from when I was in London because it only took two hours to write it. It was fun and fast and spontaneous; we were just jamming in his studio which was dark, he was projecting these cool visuals onto the walls. I was like this is interesting and this is fun.
I didn’t have to do much vocal editing or dubbing or ad libs or stuff that usually drains me out. It was such a simple and personal song so that it didn't really need that much. I just had the fun of creation without the responsibility of making it perfect.

The Cigarette outro was a very last minute idea, I was like this outro is so long so I was just speaking into the microphone and seeing what would stick. It ended up being interesting, kind of like a drunk murmur into the night when you're by yourself, alone.

Yeh, Ephemeral was Danny [L Harle]’s idea. We were in his studio, having truffle chocolates and herbal tea and I was doing melodies. I was mumbling and we both liked this idea of ephemeral because it sounds so pretty. The word ephemeral came pretty early on, before the theme, the title, it was even going to be the title of the track but Deeper & Deeper became a stronger motif.

It’s the most abstract song of all in the EP.  It’s not that specific, you don’t even know who’s pulling me down or to where… even underground is a pretty abstract idea, it's more of a feeling of being pulled by something stronger than your weight. Whether you let it pull you down or whether you resist it, sometimes you’re not gonna change the end of how it’s gonna go so you just have to let it take you wherever it's going to take you.

Yeh, yeh.

Yeh I think it’s related to a more spiritual side; practising self care, self love, trying to know more about the world and ourselves. I’m still interested in that, that side of me is still there but I want to speak a more human language. When I was doing Happy Star, I was in full on witch girl mode which I did, so to me now, I still believe in the same things — trying to discover more about this world and how the cards reflect what you’re feeling and going through but I want to get back to life itself and be more grounded.
I want to feel the moments I’m just chilling in the park, reading, pretending to read (laughs) and the more daily stuff that I never got the chance to write about. Without the grand scheme of things, I’m more free to talk about random life stuff (Lexie smiles).

I love it. I have two parts of the day: the first part is from the morning to the early afternoon. That’s my go-getter part of the day where I do all the stuff that takes mental willpower like Spanish lessons, vocal practice, workout and yoga. In those things I’m training myself to be disciplined. The second half of the day, when I feel like writing I’m going to write, when I don’t feel like writing I’m going to play Sims.

My sims world is a manifestation of the life I want for myself. I have the best house, I have the cheat code so I have endless money, the best version of myself. My house,  I just downloaded it from someone else’s house, from the site where other Sims players can upload their builds and I just picked the one that fits my vibe the most. I’m not a super visual person to design but I have a super nice beach house with a dance floor and a DJ set-up.

I like to practise Chinese Calligraphy. It makes me really calm and my handwriting was never the best. I practise on the Buddhist scriptures to wind down before sleeping — every character I have to write, I have to write it in a super peaceful mindset for it to be pretty.
It sounds tacky, but I like to get back to my roots more. The scripture and calligraphy are not simplified Chinese that we use everyday in mainland China, it’s an older, more complicated form. I never got to practise that so it was interesting to see how Chinese characters used to be. I get to see interesting details in it that I could never see before in the simplified Chinese characters.

Yeh, this time it was quite challenging for me to do a full English EP because I'm used to writing in both Chinese and English. My connection to my roots was more organic; it's more in the way of thinking, like my lyric “patience, patience, waiting for my bacon. Love is an exam but my GPA ain’t Asian”  (laughs), I think we’re always trying to ace things, even in love. I think East Asian girls are quite strict with themselves in every way, even when it comes to intimate relationships.

Actually, this time I tried to not talk about love that much because I was such a lover girl head. I was like, can we talk about something cooler this time? But yeh its still in there. It’s more of a puppy love than more sensual. Sometimes I find the songs that I wrote when I was 19 a lot more sensual compared to now. I think I was trying to grow up too fast in my teenage years but I’m still experimenting, feeling the unknown, figuring it out.

Like what?

I like dancing a lot. It’s a hobby but it’s also connected to my work. I used to dance a lot as a hobby, doing Chinese traditional folk dancing. Almost every Chinese kid had hobbies that are kind of extra-curriculum outside of school that could be beneficial for the future or they just really like it. I think dance was somewhere in between for me. It’s not choreo, it's just for me to connect with my body more and connect with the music in a deeper way.

I thought about doing Tarot readings…

Yeh I have, only for my friends as I’m not really skilful enough yet for a random person. I can’t really recite from the cards, I have to have a little sneak peak sometimes for what the cards says.
Or, whenever I’m getting lovesick all I think about is tarot reading. I don’t want to be too available, so I just ask tarot the questions I should be asking the person. So, I spend most time with Tarot when I’m lost or a little confused either in my love life or in my career, or just life in general. But in the good times, I don’t even know where it is.

I go to take group classes sometimes, just doing some gym workout. I like the feeling of being myself among the crowd and feeling their energy and being in the music with them. Total strangers, they don’t know who I am and I don’t know who they are, it’s a fun little adventure for me. I like to go into the park, pretend to read, and actually people watch. I go to massages, I need one each week, at least. I have a 50 year old’s lower back and shoulder.
In terms of friends, I don’t have that many, but mainly online chatting, updating about life with my friends, “what have you been doing today?, life sucks, don’t want to get married”. I tend to hang out with myself more, I don’t have to do makeup or look pretty, I feel the courtesy of dressing up, dolling up, when someone makes an appointment with you in real life.

Yeh. Most of my life is at home, even the most club and dance songs I wrote at home. I hardly go out, actually.

Dancing, I was taking a group dance classes doing Hip Hop but I haven’t been making Hip Hop music for a long, long time. Dancing in that kind of music makes me feel somehow really different and somehow yet friendly. It’s somewhere I’m comfortable with myself in that music and expressing my inner masculinity, aggressiveness, that rebellious feeling. Sometimes, I miss that.

Yeh. I think both sides of me are true to myself, but I feel nostalgic for it sometimes, I think I want to make that kind of music again sometime. I’m inspired by this idea of  — I could be this also — the multi-aspects of who I could be.

It’s a diary so I wanted it to sound like a diary too. I left out autotune in songs like Cigarettes, I completely didn’t use anything and I didn’t really touch up the notes either. I just left it raw so hopefully it’s more genuine and feels like a friend talking to you. In creation, I was trying to do less this time and simplify things, not to create a certain feeling but let’s see where it goes if I'm not trying that hard. It feels more intimate, more bedroom-y, less for the stadium kind of music.

Yeh, it’s a way to reshape myself by putting out a full completed English project, like a new introduction to a wilder world. It feels like the right time to do this as a record of my current experience: my late 20s, my second puberty.
I feel sometimes that when I was a lot younger, I I wanted to be a responsible adult but now, when I’m 26, there’s still a lot of stuff I can’t figure out. I have to call my mum. I’m just like: mum, can you help me with this? I think about how when my mum was this age she was already getting married, having kids... I’m still figuring out what it means to be a girl or woman in 2025. I just hope people can feel a little more seen and okay, when they don’t have it all figured out, as that’s the same as me.