Drenched in pop sensibilities, You Are So Lovely is a unique take on a toxic relationship.

With a training in classical music, 22-year-old Sophie Blair is a breath of fresh air in the over-saturated pop landscape. Having performed with The Killers, Bruce Springsteen, Train, The Moth & the Flame, and many others, she is now revealing the product of her own work and experiences in the form of her debut EP, Arteries. A coming-of-age story, the EP touches upon the themes of hurt and loss, transformation, but also complete and irrevocable joy.

Written on viola and loop pedal, the focus single You Are So Lovely paints a picture of an emotionally exhausting relationship on the verge of collapse. Flourishing on a minimal, raw soundscape, Blair’s warm vocals take centre stage as she pours her emotions into the song. Finding strength in music, the track is her way of finally letting go of the past.

Speaking on the single, Blair shares:

This was one of the first songs I wrote on viola & loop pedal. I wrote it when I was barely 19, and at the time I was at an all-time low. I’d been in an emotionally exhausting relationship—one of the intoxicating, heart-stopping ones that never ends, no matter how many times you break up or separate. It got the point that it felt so ridiculous—the drunk texts, the lucid dreams, the crying, the fighting, the makeup sex—that I lost my ability to take it seriously. Taking a more tongue-in-cheek tone made me feel a little better.

On the EP, she adds:

When you’re young, every time feels like the last time, and I wanted to write about that feeling—about every feeling of my late adolescence/early adulthood at a constant, dizzying peak. I couldn’t live like that for the rest of my life. But the feelings I carried in those years shaped me, strengthened me, and bettered me. This EP is an ode to those feelings and those years.