ST. PAUL – Cassia Lumby settles comfortably onto her bed, her trusty MacBook perched on her lap. The dim light of her bedroom casts a warm glow across her face as she opens a music composition app.
She then reaches for her snowball microphone, adjusting it carefully in front of her.
With a sip of water, she begins to record. Her voice rings clear and true through the microphone, each note flowing effortlessly from her lips. She loses herself in the music, completely absorbed in the process.
As the night wears on, Lumby continues to work, lost in the creative flow – her bedroom becoming a sanctuary.
It is within the four walls of this bedroom where Cassia wrote and produced her recent album, Hall of Mirrors, conjuring songs that aim to sound otherworldly in their composition and tune, as if plucked from a realm beyond our own.
Among the eight songs in her album is Belladonna, filled with ethereal synths and a driving beat, with whispery vocals in the background that gave the track a dreamlike soundscape.
“For me... music is therapy,” says the 21-year-old St. Paul-born musician, who is also currently studying Criminology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton. “It’s kind of a culmination of all of my most extreme feelings, thoughts, and emotions... an interpretation of reality and the world that is my own.”
Her musical process involves jotting down snippets of her own journal entries that come to her throughout the day. Her mind races with ideas, and she eagerly captures them before they slip away.
She also experiments with a variety of digital instruments with a musical composition app at her disposal. She stitches together her ideas, weaving them into a tapestry of lyrics to complement the music she crafts – bringing her songs to life.
“I primarily like to have sad or melancholic lyrics over [a] really bopping tune... but you can still dance to it,” she explains. “I don't like my music to be depressing. I like to have a nice balance,” something between fun and comforting.
Lumby also incorporates her poetry into her music, reinterpreting the world’s beauty, even “when it’s sad and when times are hard.” For example, “Glass Casket... it’s about being alone and living in an apocalypse... and then rediscovering joy, happiness, and beauty in the world.”
Her emotions are poured into her craft. The song, Hourglass, for example, is inspired by her first year of post-secondary. “I had the best time of my life and made a bunch of friends.”
“Then that summer I had to go home and leave all my friends behind. I was also heartbroken at the time, so I was really looking back and wishing I could just go back in time and live all of that again... like forever,” she says.
“That was kind of sad... [also] a little bit unhealthy,” Lumby says, with a chuckle, explaining how she emulated those feelings into her music. “But again, I wanted it to be really fun.”
“When I played [the song] for my parents, it was pretty funny because my mom started crying and then my dad was dancing,” she laughs at the recollection, explaining how the song’s interpretation could depend on who might be listening to it. “It’s just another way of expressing my emotions and making art.”
Her album is raw in its honesty, and unapologetic in its exploration of complex emotions. Through her music and art, she tries to “convey interesting and complex real emotions,” explaining how she finds the idea of “contradictory emotions in music to be really something that I very much enjoy.”
The genre of music is “tricky” to describe, she admits. “I would classify it as electronic... like downtempo... because it’s a bit more chill and relaxed.” Her many inspirations within the music industry include artists like Grimes, deadmau5, Pastel Ghost, and Let’s Eat Grandma.
But, “first and foremost, definitely my piano teacher, [Natalie Béland,]” she says. “She taught me [piano] for like 10 years. She was also just really patient and kind with me, and helped me to become like a really good classical pianist.” Béland is a long-time piano teacher based in St. Paul.
Lumby does it all, having produced, published, and composed all her songs on her own – from her own bedroom. For people wanting to do the same, she says, “It’s easier than you think.”
“There are tools and there are affordable and even free tools you can use to produce an album and have your work on iTunes and Spotify,” says Lumby. “I always thought it would be totally impossible, but it’s absolutely something that anybody can achieve... and it’s fun.”
While she creates music more as a hobby for now, she dreams to one day create and perform music for a living. Lumby thanked all those who have supported her, particularly her family.
Lumby goes by the name “streetveil” and her recent album can be found on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music.
