Lennon Stella – Sleeping Lion
Lennon Stella has released her second studio album Sleeping Lion, out today via RECORDS.
Also released today is the official visualizer for track “Smartest Person in the Room” directed by Stella and her collaborator Adam Alonzo.
Tomorrow marks the first show of her sold out Up Close & Personal run of shows in Nashville, New York, Toronto & Los Angeles. In addition to her headline shows, she will also perform at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville on October 25th.
Sleeping Lion is Lennon Stella’s second album, but it feels like an introduction. The title’s image of dormant strength aptly summarizes the journey that the 27-year-old indie folk singer-songwriter has been on for six years.
After her 2020 full-length Three. Two. One., Stella needed to take a second to get to know herself and reconnect with her love of music. Sleeping Lion is the result of this moment of quiet, which sees Stella returning with a renewed sense of creative freedom and trust in her own instincts.
The album took shape through a deeply personal process, including scrapping an earlier version of the record, and a serendipitous collaboration with lauded Canadian singer-songwriter Andy Shauf, who serves as the producer of the album and helped Lennon reconnect with the raw, earnest music that first inspired her.
“It felt like there were many little mountains throughout the experience of making this album that challenged me, lessons I learned about truly trusting myself,” Stella says. “I had to swallow any people-pleasing tendencies, piss everyone off, and trust myself enough to scrap it without a plan. I knew that this was one of the little mountains, and the record I wanted to make was on the other side of it.”
The songs on Sleeping Lion revolve around the intricacies of relationships, and Stella is an acute observer. “Beginner’s Mind” explores the vulnerabilities of a long-term partnership while “Unforgivable Things” recognizes the disconnect between intentions and their actions. Even the condescending subject of the upbeat “Smartest Person in the Room” is sketched with a compassionate sarcasm.
Of the track, Stella says, ‘Smartest Person in the Room’ is me rolling my eyes in song. We unfortunately all know the person who is talking to hear themselves talk, using you as a prop to prove something to themselves. In other words this song is about mansplaining. It’s one of the more playful moments on the record, which I think is a necessary piece of the whole puzzle.”
Lennon Stella’s sold out Up Close & Personal show dates will bring the elegant and deeply personal songs of Sleeping Lion to life in a stripped-down live setting for the very first time. The shows will kick off in Nashville tomorrow with additional stops in New York City, Toronto, and Los Angeles.
Lennon Stella Upcoming Live Dates
10/24 – Nashville, TN @ The Blue Room SOLD OUT
10/25 – Nashville, TN @ Grand Ole Opry
10/27 – New York, NY @ LPR SOLD OUT
10/29 – Toronto, ON @ Paradise Theatre SOLD OUT
11/3 – Los Angeles, CA @ Pico Union Project SOLD OUT
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