Leeds-based singer/songwriter Sunday Lendis dazzles and enchants with her second song “With Ease,” a poetic, electronic jazz-folk affair rife with mesmerizing musical light and seductive existential dread.
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Stream: “With Ease” – Sunday Lendis
What I want just a little bit is to find my way in this massive world, to be the person I was sold…
Longing and yearning lie at the heart of Sunday Lendis’ sophomore single, yet the overarching takeaway the artist leaves her listeners with is a sense of cool, captivated wonder. Layers of vocals swell, stir, stun, and soar alongside percussive body claps and tender guitars as a vessel floats at sea in a perpetual state of self-discovery and uncertainty. Spaces of intimate, utter isolation gently ebb and flow, building up to cathartic cacophonies of reckoning as the artist confronts her very being, questioning her purpose and place in this great big world. It’s a seductive chaos; a beautiful mess. The swiftly burgeoning singer/songwriter dazzles and enchants on “With Ease,” a poetic, electronic jazz-folk affair rife with mesmerizing musical light and alluring existential dread.
This song is more or less the opposite of its name, and yet everything about it somehow soothes a weary soul.
What I want just a little bit,
Is to find my way in this massive world,
To be the person I was sold.
I can see right in front of me,
Clearly there’s more that I can be,
More to hear than I’ve been told.
Take me outside, I can’t decide
Where the ground beneath me lies.
Show me how, and take me back,
To the place I knew myself.
Released January 11, 2023 via Come Play With Me, “With Ease” is the delicate and dynamic second single from Sunday Lendis. Born and raised in Australia and based in Leeds, UK for over a decade, Lendis debuted late last year with November’s “Breathe Again,” a gorgeous, graceful, and glistening introduction glowing with the warm, nurturing light of spring. “‘Breathe Again’ captures life’s beauty,” Atwood Magazine wrote shortly after its release. “Lush guitars and keys coalesce through sweetly stirring patterns to create a vivid, delicately textured background that, together with Lendis’ soothing vocal performance, evokes the magic of the season.”
Pull me in I’m out at sea,
Stop this current from taking me,
And show me where I should begin.
Don’t tell me I need to start again,
Create my own set of blueprints,
I’m just someone lost at sea.
Take me outside, I can’t decide,
Where the ground beneath me lies.
Show me how, and take me back,
To the place I knew myself.
Lendis inspired a sense of wonder and rediscovery, rebirth and renewal in “Breathe Again,” and she similarly holds nothing back in “With Ease,” whose stunning arrangement and vivid vocal performance prove instantly memorable and utterly inspiring.
“This song is about everything but Ease,” Lendis chuckles. “I hadn’t given myself the time or patience to figure out who I was; during the final year of my degree, COVID hit and I felt like I was left with nothing. This song explores those feelings of drifting, feeling lost and unsure of yourself especially during such difficult times.”
Take me outside, I now realise,
Where the ground beneath lies.
show me how, don’t take me back,
To the place I thought I knew.
The second single taken off her forthcoming debut EP Long Exposure (set for release Spring 2023), “With Ease” is profoundly transformational considering its subject matter. Lendis truly covers the map in four minutes’ time, smoothly transitioning from a warm folk serenade to a more charged and churning jazz-pop terrain, and ultimately adding a sprinkle of spoken word on top as the instruments below dwell in a cataclysmic euphoria. In fact, she goes one step further, singing and speaking every other line of certain lyrics to emphasize not only the words themselves, but also the emotions and meanings behind them. It’s an unsettling and unusual approach, but the result is as oddly comforting as it is ingenious.
Sometimes I wonder how easy it would be if,
Someone were to lead through,
The twists and the turns
holding me, but then,
When you take away choice, and adversity,
Is what is left worth living? Really?
I can’t imagine, a world without,
The things I’ve lived,
And the tales I’ve seen.
My choices, all of them
Is what makes me.
When you take away choice and adversity, is what’s left worth living, really?
“With Ease” is uncompromising, untethered, and unapologetic: Lendis holds nothing back as she delves deep into herself, looking for the treasure she knows lies within.
This is soul-searching at its finest. Sunday Lendis has emerged as a singular voice (or should we say, “set of voices?”) who never ceases to dazzle, enchant, and amaze those who take the time to listen to her art. “With Ease” is its own world of wondrous delight, and though it may have been inspired by self-doubt and self-loss, this song itself is undeniably one of discovery and becoming. Lend an ear and surrender to Sunday Lendis’ beautiful, ethereal, cathartic cacophony.
And how proud I would be
To grow, and to learn, and to wonder.
And how sad it can be
To be alone, and to fall, and to stumble.
All of the people in me,
All of the places I’ve seen,
All of the memories I’ll keep,
Won’t you come with me?
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Stream: “With Ease” – Sunday Lendis
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📸 © Maria Alzamora
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