Toronto singer/songwriter Lia Pappas-Kemps delivers a charged emotional reckoning with “Towers,” a slow-burn indie rock eruption off her upcoming debut album ‘Winged’ that finds clarity not in holding on longer, but in finally telling yourself the truth.

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Stream: “Towers” – Lia Pappas-Kemps

Hand me that flare gun – this is the eleventh hour, I’ll send a prayer up…

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Love doesn’t usually end all at once.

More often, it erodes in plain sight – through ignored signs, quiet compromises, and the stories we tell ourselves to justify staying. Lia Pappas-Kemps’ searing single “Towers” lives inside that fragile moment of reckoning: The realization that you’ve been lying to yourself to preserve something that’s already slipping away. It’s a song about denial cracking open, about seeing clearly and choosing whether to return to yourself or keep pretending not to notice the fall.

A charged and soul-stirring indie rock eruption, “Towers” balances tenderness with volatility, mirroring the emotional push-and-pull at its core. Propulsive guitars surge and recede beneath Pappas-Kemps’ intimate, searching vocal, while the song builds with a slow-burn intensity that never rushes the truth. It’s dynamic without being chaotic – dramatic, aching, and deeply human in its restraint.

I turned a corner
Back towards her
Back towards the past
I crossed the border
According to the GPS

Ten thousand hours
Thousand towers
Locked inside her head
Turning the dial
Every mile made a difference

Released January 16^th, “Towers” arrives as the latest preview of Lia Pappas-Kemps’ anticipated debut album Winged, out March 13, 2026 via Coalition Music. No stranger to Atwood’s pages, the 21-year-old Toronto-based singer/songwriter has quickly emerged as one of indie rock’s most compelling new voices, praised for her close-to-the-bones lyricism and instinctive melodic sense. Her music carries echoes of Fiona Apple, Joni Mitchell, Courtney Barnett, and Feist, but always lands somewhere unmistakably her own – emotionally precise, observant, and unafraid of discomfort.

That clarity is central to Winged, a record shaped by themes of yearning, misrecognition, and the slow work of self-reckoning.

As Pappas-Kemps explains, the album is threaded by “the idea of ignoring signs, and retrospectively acknowledging that it was perhaps purposeful.” “Towers” sits at the heart of that arc – not as a dramatic collapse, but as the moment when the illusion finally stops holding.

“It’s about the tipping point of a relationship, when everything feels like it’s slipping,” Pappas-Kemps tells Atwood Magazine. “I think it’s about realizing you’ve been lying to yourself to be able to stay in a relationship and about returning to yourself. Also, the last-ditch effort to maybe try and preserve it.” That tension – between self-honesty and emotional bargaining – pulses through every line of the song.

You had eyes for another
Hand me that flare gun
This is the eleventh hour
I’ll send a prayer up

Written and recorded in one fluid motion with her cousin Elia in their Montreal apartment, “Towers” stands apart in Pappas-Kemps’ catalog for how inseparable its writing and recording became. “It’s the only song on the record where the recording and the writing felt synonymous,” she explains. That immediacy shows: The song feels urgent and raw, as if it’s unfolding in real time rather than reflecting backward.

Lyrically, “Towers” captures the mental spiral of a relationship at its breaking point – flare guns fired too late, prayers sent upward in the eleventh hour, and the devastation of realizing someone else already has “eyes for another.” Lines like “I wanna break the spell / clock strikes twelve” land with aching inevitability, while the recurring imagery of distance, borders, and time underscores how far apart two people can drift without ever officially leaving.

I blurred the vision with precision
Then the morning dawned
Felt my imposition
On the dinner
Cue the monologue

We fought with the light on
Then again when we turned the light off
I wish I couldn’t have been bothered
But I was very much

What makes “Towers” so powerful is its refusal to dramatize clarity. There’s no villain here, no explosive ending – just the weight of recognition and the courage it takes to finally believe it. In that way, the song becomes less about loss and more about reclamation: choosing honesty over illusion, even when it hurts.

With Winged‘s release fast approaching, Pappas-Kemps’ hopes are simple and sincere. “I hope people hear ‘Towers’ and wanna come out to a live show,” she shares. More broadly, she hopes listeners “feel seen through the songs.”

As emotionally charged as it is satisfyingly cathartic, “Towers” stays because it understands how quietly lives change – how truth arrives not as lightning, but as a slow, unmistakable knowing.

It’s a song that doesn’t rush the fall or the landing, honoring the moment when self-deception gives way to self-return – and trusting that, sometimes, that’s where real flight begins.

Lia Pappas-Kemps recently sat down with Atwood Magazine to talk about the breaking point at the heart of “Towers,” the emotional architecture of Winged, and what it means to finally stop ignoring the signs. Read our conversation below, and join this striking singer/songwriter as she basks in the eleventh hour.

You had eyes for another
Hand me that flare gun
This is the eleventh hour
I’ll send a prayer up

I wanna break the spell
Clock strikes twelve
I wanna feel an angel
In my bedroom again

You had eyes for another
Hand me that flare gun
This is the eleventh hour
I’ll send a pray

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:: stream/purchase Towers here ::

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Stream: “Towers” – Lia Pappas-Kemps

A CONVERSATION WITH LIA PAPPAS-KEMPS

Lia Pappas-Kemps: I’m a singer-songwriter from Toronto, Canada! I write songs about yearning, regret, confusion, self-doubt, self-absorption, friendships, towers, doors, and birds.

Lia Pappas-Kemps: Fiona Apple, Courtney Barnett, Feist, Joni Mitchell, to name a few. It’s hard to say exactly what it is that I like about my own songs, but lately I’ve been getting a lot of joy out of playing them. I appreciate that they feel intuitive to play but also still surprise me. Sometimes I’ll listen to a voice memo of a song I wrote a day before and be like ??? What am I doing?!

Lia Pappas-Kemps: I made this track with my cousin Elia in the living room of our apartment in Montreal. It’s the only song on the record where the recording and the writing felt synonymous, like one fluid thing. I tend to write privately and then record, so I think tackling it differently gave way to a song I probably wouldn’t have written on my own.

Lia Pappas-Kemps: I think it’s about realizing you’ve been lying to yourself to be able to stay in a relationship and about returning to yourself. Also, the last-ditch effort to maybe try and preserve it.

Lia Pappas-Kemps: That theme that I was just talking about is a major through-line in the record I believe. The idea of ignoring signs, and retrospectively acknowledging that it was perhaps purposeful.

Lia Pappas-Kemps: Overall, I think I’m just really proud of the songs themselves. I feel like my songwriting shines on this record and that feels really exciting to share with people.

Lia Pappas-Kemps: As of right now, my favourite songs off the album are the first track, “The Hunches,” and the third-last song called “Orchid”…!

Lia Pappas-Kemps: I hope people hear “Towers” and wanna come out to a live show! As for the record, I think I mainly just hope people feel seen through the songs. I definitely feel like I gleaned so much insight into myself through writing it – most of which I was only really able to identify now that it’s done.

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:: stream/purchase Towers here ::

:: connect with Lia Pappas-Kemps here ::

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Stream: “Towers” – Lia Pappas-Kemps

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