Canadian singer Lights was featured in a song by EDM artists Tokyo Machine & Weird Genius called “Last Summer,” which has been given a new animated music video. It first came out on February 5, 2021 via Monstercat.
It’s an upbeat song about lost love. Lights sings in the chorus, “Last summer, everything was easy (easy)/We had it all, didn’t we baby?/No wonder you couldn’t keep me (keep me)/It got harder than you thought it would be/You stopped loving me on the dark nights/Now you won’t kiss me in the sunlight/Last summer, I knew you’d leave me/’Cause loving me isn’t easy.” There’s a high-pitched melodic synth EDM drop after each repetition of the hook.
An anime-inspired music video shows Lights, Tokyo Machine, Weird Genius and a fictional gray-haired boyfriend as Lights’ character acts through the breakup story told in the lyrics. There is a lot of wind and rain during the verses and flashbacks to the happy times of summer by a picturesque river for the hook. At the end of the video, the sun pokes through the clouds and the characters appear to be friends again.
Lights released her last solo single on April 30, called “Beside Myself.” Although still upbeat, it’s perhaps her most ethereal song to date and deals with how she’s had to cope with isolation over the last year. She sings, “Don’t leave me hanging/Waiting for something/Believing in nothing with nobody else/Body is aching/Dreaming and waking/Don’t leave me waiting/Don’t leave me here/Beside myself.”
On Christmas 2020, Lights shared a single called “Hearts On Fire” in collaboration with popular EDM artist Illenium and a Canadian electronic producer called Dabin. Her 2014 Little Machines cut, “Up We Go,” is still her biggest hit, but her 2019 single “Love Me” came close.
Last August, she released an EP with Dangerkids’ vocalist Tyler Smyth as MYTH, called Dead End. Earlier in 2020, she shared synthwave EP called How to Sleep When You’re On Fire and a collaboration with dance producer i_o called AM 444. Her last full-length solo album had been a high-production pop album called Skin & Earth in 2017, which she stripped down to an acoustic version in 2019.
Photo credit: Mehreen Rizvi
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