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.

Known for his buttery voice and distinct strumming, singer-songwriter and visual artist John Roseboro has been making a name for himself in the indie scene, redefining and innovating the genre from Brooklyn, NY.

Building off of the likes of João Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim, Roseboro’s post-bossa style carries other similarities to the greats in that his music focuses on personal and social justice, undertaking major concepts such as human rights, love, and religion, being described as “probably the music that will heal the world… impossible to be indifferent, in voice and soul.”

John cites his upbringing, particularly his living with the Amish and years as a mortician, as informing his playing and perspective. The new artist has received praise from indie giants Field Medic, Thee Sacred Souls, Men I Trust, and Frankie Cosmos drawing comparisons to King Krule, Steve Lacy, Elliott Smith and Seu Jorge.

After independently garnering a loyal online and live show audience and self-releasing the culturally acclaimed ‘Johnny’, Roseboro has returned with “Four Cantos, moving the culture forward with no end in sight.