Ellie Baird, the lead singer/songwriter behind Not Lenny, was raised in Illinois, but musically came of age in the lush farmland of the Olympic Peninsula. Her debut EP, Desire, straddles both worlds: tightly crafted arrangements of songs about coming of age in the midwest, executed by the Olympic Peninsula’s finest musicians, mixed by Casey Foubert (Sufjan Stevens, The Shins) in Chicago. At the center of it all is Baird’s voice, sometimes airy and delicate, sometimes broad and expansive, but always with timbral depth and adorned with shimmering vibrato. Her band matches her range of expression: Solomon Kronberg’s electric guitar both whispers secrets and carries the band to raucous heights, while Colin Schmidt’s bass and Adam Amr’s drums undergird a rhythm section that is both dynamic and steadfast. 

Baird sings about the awkwardness of adolescence, the uncertainty of growing older, and the experience of losing one’s sense of self in the throes of a faltering relationship, but ultimately reclaiming it on the other side. In “Headlights” Baird quips, “My usual escapes are losing charm as I age // I’d drink myself to stumbling but honestly I don’t need the headache”. The arc of “Desire” is a redemptive one: Not Lenny reveals the power of self-assuredness in the face of the unknown, and the strength to be found in rebuilding from the entropy of heartbreak.