Photography by Heidi Drexler Photography
Sui
The 10 dreamy and melodic tracks on five star friends might call to mind a bygone era of combat boots and flannel. But the artist happens to have missed the ’90s entirely, given that she’s 16 years old.
St. Louis’ own Lily Winter, performing as sui, released five star friends in May—find it on Spotify or Apple Music.
The record nods to Winter’s influences—everything from breakcore to indie rock to Britpop—while creating a sophisticated environment and a narrative that is deeply her own and personal.
“Lungs” is an aching exploration of the uncertainty we humans all feel trying to connect. “The Window Exit” brings to mind early-aughts emo catharsis, and “Kitten” gets off to a quiet start before moving into a driving and fuzzed-out electronic take on its own early themes.
Winter’s vocals go from precise to gorgeously woozy, and the instrumentals range from spare to highly produced. Prepare to get these songs stuck in your head—fair warning.
For Winter, being a musician was all but inevitable.
“I’ve been playing piano for 12 years, guitar for 10. I’ve been singing since I had the ability to speak,” she says. “Pretty much everybody in my family is musically oriented. Every time there’s a family gathering, everybody is going to play music at some point.”
Other than drums on one track, she played everything herself and wrote most of it, and recorded and mixed on a “little hundred-dollar audio setup” in the basement.
The album’s title, five star friends, might evoke a Yelp review—and that’s kind of the point. Winter says the songs are mostly snapshots of specific people and moments in her life, and they were written during a season of great change for her.
“I lost and gained a lot of friends. I went through this period of time where I was rapidly switching circles,” Winter says. “Am I renting these people for 10 minutes to be in my life?”
Beyond the normal upheaval of being 16, Winter’s work is also set against navigating her gender transition.
“Transitioning was figuring out those other parts of how I was presenting myself in the world,” she says. “I think that pretty much is the human condition. Change is pretty much what life is, most of the time.”
Add in a global pandemic and civil rights uprisings, of course, and Winter is operating in a pretty singular era. She’d hoped for a release show for the album, but that’s on hold for now.
“As soon as I’m able to, I want to get as many live shows as I can,” says Winter. “That’s what I take the most pleasure from—I love performing.”
Before she even released five star friends, work began on the next project—look for a new single called “No Letters” next month. Per Winter, it’s gonna get weird.
“My next goal is to make something that, instead of being coherent, I want it to be more representative of all the types of music that I love,” she says. “I am too excited to let my album sit for a moment.”
