Although she has released just two EPs to date, Hana Lili is emerging as a fully formed artist, her raw and revealing songwriting matched by the expressiveness of her voice. It’s a blend that has taken the young Welsh artist to some major early career highlights including playing two stadium shows with Coldplay, supporting Tom Grennan and Circa Waves, and landing a wave of Radio 1 airplay. As a big year ahead kicks off for Lili, she has shared her latest single Basement.
Hana Lili
Basement finds Lili carving her own distinct niche in the modern alt-pop scene, its addictive, propulsive energy infused with the empowerment of the iconic female artists of the ‘90s and a punky emo undercurrent. She holds nothing back when it comes to channelling her inner thoughts into the cathartic release of songwriting, and that’s particularly true here. Basement is an honest and relatable tale of a relationship being perfect… until you’re suddenly struck by the stark realisation that it really isn’t.
The 23-year-old says, “Basement explores trust in a relationship. The phrase ‘friendly fires in the basement’ symbolises a deceptive lie that might seem harmless but had the potential to wreck everything. All along, there was a fire in the basement of our relationship, always there; I had just never seen it before until it was too late. I wrote the song to express my disappointment and mixed emotions in a cathartic way. It became a way to convey the complex feelings that arose when the foundations of my once happy relationship disappeared.”
Listen to Basement below:
Her latest tune and her previous single Small Talk demonstrate the Sully-hailing singer’s versatility while maintaining broadly similar genre and era touchpoints. Small Talk instead took those influences and headed into grungey, dream-pop territory. Naturally, then, she cites the likes of The Cardigans, Nirvana, Pixies, No Doubt and Fleetwood Mac as particular favourites.
Lili wrote Basement with its producer Daniel Newcombe (JERUB) as well as David Plumb and Mark Vallance (Tom Walker).
Hana grew up in the small village of Sully on the Welsh coast, its rootsy local folk scene (her first language is Welsh) embedding her within a culture of storytelling songs from a young age. As she grew up she dived in her parents’ record collection and embraced contemporary genres too. and it wasn’t long before she was pouring her authentic and unfiltered emotions into her own songs. That skill was complemented by taking a DIY approach to learning production within her bedroom studio set-up.
Performing locally allowed her to hone her craft away from the spotlight, which paid off as opportunities to play on far bigger stages started to emerge. Her artistry quickly developed across two independently released EPs, Flowers Die In The Summertime and Existential, and now Hana Lili is poised to rise to the next level.
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