How can we forge new forms of coming home to ourselves? On his sophomore album Blurring Time (2025), Bells Larsen collapses time into a series of patient ceremonies. Guided by the earned satisfaction of simply “being” as a political act, the record is inspired by the many ways we write the ever-arriving self into existence. Oscillating between spacious lo-fi 90s indie, and searing folk ballads, his newest project welcomes into the room the haunting accompaniment of the voice frozen and suspended in time. Designed to align with the timeline of his transition, he intentionally recorded his previous “high” voice and instrumentation in 2022, waited for his voice to drop after beginning testosterone, then asked frequent collaborator and longtime friend, Georgia Harmer to write vocal arrangements for his new “low” voice, helping him harmonize with his past self — an intentional, multilingual act of surrendering to change. While on previous projects, Larsen set his vocals in the backdrop of the music, on Blurring Time he unites and positions both voices at the forefront to deliver a bold, unyielding devotional. 

Enveloped in soundscapes of quiet and expansive intimacy, he unfurls intricately-crafted acoustic arrangements that opt for unconventional melodic left-turns. Produced by Graham Ereaux, by making the most out of minimal inventory, Larsen conjures the attention to detail of lyricists like Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens, and Adrienne Lenker. Inquisitive, open-eyed, and discerning, Larsen’s meditations on everything from tender and fragile sibling dynamics, to the transformative potential of queer world-making, are grounding reflections on shared trials and epiphanies. 

Raised by a family of artists and writers in Toronto, Larsen was encouraged to shape his acumen as a storyteller into lyrics when he was given a guitar on his eighth birthday. His debut album, Good Grief (2022) was created during an artist residency in Banff as a restorative invocation — a series of warbled lullabies to the self and collective; an exploration of how mourning the death of a first love can become an opportunity to empathize with many. Since releasing his first project in 2022, Larsen has been featured in The Line of Best Fit, Under the Radar, The CBC,and Exclaim! and has shared stages with Buck Meek (Big Thief), Martha Wainwright, and Land of Talk. 

If Good Grief found Larsen reaching outward to understand the self in the wake of loss, the tracks on Blurring Time move with the quiet urgency of self-actualization, archiving an artist that seeks to accept the passage of time as it folds into their being. The voices of past and present no longer stand in contrast, but in harmony—a subtle submission to the constant state of becoming. “Before Georgia and I recorded my low vocals, we sat down and decided which songs would be high voice songs, which would be low voice songs, and which would be duets,” says Larsen. “ We took a sheet of paper, wrote out the tracklist, and scribbled a small "HV ","LV ", or “HV/LV” next to each song.” Larsen knew off the bat, for instance, that “514-415” would be a duet song, whereas it was important for him that his previous high voice be the main character on other tracks.

“Many coming-of-age stories are furnished with dichotomies of the before and the after, without the two ever merging,” Larsen reflects. “For the purposes of Blurring Time, I didn’t want to have to choose between showcasing my past or present. Through the creation of this album—and of myself, I suppose—I wanted to change “or” to “and” with the hopes of extending a hand to older versions of myself, carrying them with me as I grow.”