The R’n’B-Pop newcomer reconciles the Berlin night with the morning melancholy.
When you listen to UTOPIA, Lie Ning’s debut album, and when you add the circumstances, the biography and the collaborators, you inevitably think: This pop draft is almost too perfect to be true. The artist is not only a musician, dancer and model, queer and PoC, but also grew up in a Berlin artist community and UTOPIA was produced by Stephen Fitzmaurice, who has already worked for Sam Smith, Depeche Mode and Sting.
This voice seems almost occupied, slightly enraptured, but not completely gone
The title song that opens the album then shows why you shouldn’t just shove Lie Ning away as Berlin’s next big thing, but listen to him: not just because of the internationally compatible R’n’B-pop sound, not so much because of the elegant dripping beats or the jubilant synths, but above all because of his voice, which immediately reminds you of Anohni when she was Antony Hegarty.
This voice seems almost occupied, slightly removed, but not yet completely flown away into the ether like with Anohni. It is this voice that takes you in its arms and leads you into the urban stories in which beauty and love may triumph, but hopes also like to turn into toxic relationships. Sound and songs storm through the Berlin night, but the voice already thinks about the gray morning and its melancholy. Hardly anyone is currently reconciling this contrast as conclusively as Lie Ning.