After finding collaborative kinship with BROCKHAMPTON frontman Kevin Abstract, Los Angeles-via-Sydney nonbinary artist The Blossom (real name Lily Lizotte) became the group’s first Video Store Records signee—a testament to their shared genre agnosticism and amenable approach to visual songwriting. Recorded in their closet at home, at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu, and at the famed BROCKHAMPTON house, 97 BLOSSOM has a geography as diverse as its musical palette. “Having the ability to go to all these different places sonically, it translates to my personality,” they tell Apple Music. “That's also what I'm dealing with gender, being nonbinary. That’s in my sound. Ultimately, it’s that there is no true way to be, except for yourself.” Below, The Blossom breaks down their debut EP, track by track. “CONFETTI” “My dad's in Australia. He sent over this guitar loop, I got on my laptop straight away and hopped on. I actually wasn't feeling like writing that day. He kept on badgering me, 'Have you heard the thing I sent you? Have you heard the thing I sent you?' It's got this big dark humor, but it's also this sense of hopefulness. That’s the narrative of the EP, and that's why I started it off with this track. Consciously, I'm really inspired by a lot of genres. For me, the ’90s and 2000s are really evident influences. 'CONFETTI' recontextualizes an acoustic ballad, and lyrically, by using a lot of present-day symbolism, and Auto-Tune with the acoustic guitar. I like to put things into a space where they’re not able to be time-stamped.” “HARDCORE HAPPY” “‘HARDCORE HAPPY’ is the perfect amalgamation of all my influences in one. You've got hurdling, distorted, rumbling, firecracker-type 808s and drums mixed with really natural textures, hyper-melodic melodies. I'm laughing and I'm singing, and everything feels like it belongs together. But it doesn't, at the same time. That’s the height of what I wanted to achieve on this EP, as far as the production goes.” “SMOKE” feat. Matt Champion “Matt wrote a lot of the EP with me. He really became me during the project. I trusted him to understand my nature and my language, so much so that he would write things, turn his phone to me, I'd take the phone, and I'd lay it down straight away. We sat next to each other; in the verses that go back and forth from one another, we're handing each other the mic, back and forth.” “SHAPESHIFTER” “I wrote ‘SHAPESHIFTER’ with Zach Fogarty (Jean Dawson, Claud). It really touches on my gender dysphoria and how I, in order to feel accepted in a space, to be able to survive in a space, have to shape-shift. I'm constantly trying to understand gender and my behavior because of gender, and other people's behavior because of gender. But also, it's uplifting and it's happy, but it also touches on something that causes me pain day-to-day.” “BLACK EYE” “I had my leg out the window. It was 12:00 am at night. The microphone was corded for me, so I could stare out. There were no lights; it was a full black night. I was looking out, I recorded it from start to finish, and I'm crying. I'm breaking down. You can hear that. But I wanted to go through with it. The song is about feeling insecure and about physical abuse. I had to add a little laugh at the end.” “CLOVES” “Coming out of ‘BLACK EYE,’ we needed to end on a high note. I end the EP with the yearning and desire to change my life. 'CLOVES' is a serenade to send you off into the next chapter. I wanted to leave with hope.”