Lizzie No - Halfsies (2024) [Hi-Res]

Third album from Brooklyn, NY singer songwriter, guitarist and harpist Lizzie No. Genre is a construct. To categorize artists might make it easier to organize record stores and playlists but there’s no one term that could define any artist, least of all one like Lizzie No.

You could say that Lizzie No makes “Americana” music, in that her work pulls from the rhythms and traditions of Blues, Folk, and Country - not unlike the artists to whom she’s most often compared: Allison Russell, Rhiannon Giddens and Adia Victoria - but her collaborations with Brian Dunne, Pom Pom Squad and Domino Kirkie display an undeniable Indie influence that allows her to move frequently and seamlessly between overlapping musical circles.

You could say that Lizzie No writes “protest” songs, in that as a Queer, Black woman, her entire existence is a living, breathing, singing protest against a genre and a country that, on their best days, are reluctant to reckon with the very foundations upon which they were built. The erasure of Black artists is central to the myth of country music - what it means, what it stands for, where it comes from - and so simply by standing on stage and singing, whether it be in theaters across the country with the Black Opry, or leading Queer Line Dancing nights with the Lavender Country tour, Lizzie No is staging a kind of protest.

The exploration of the relationship between individuality and belonging that informs Halfsies likewise informs No’s work as co-host of the Basic Folk podcast, where she has interviewed artists from Ben Harper to Valerie June to Kishi Bashi. Halfsies follows a dizzying five year span that saw the release of two stunning, eclectic albums, Hard Won and Vanity, which garnered No’s own acclaim from the likes of Billboard, NPR Music, Paste and Rolling Stone.

Lizzie No’s beautifully intricate songwriting shines across these twelve songs, with the personal and political folding into each other as naturally as her patchwork of influences. The album serves as a living conversation between No’s musical and literary inspirations, reflecting her reverence for the great voices who came before her, from Lucinda Williams to Toni Morrison, and her search for a connection between them.