LILY KINCADE
Written By Siena Robb
Lily Kincade’s latest release Cinematic is a record that pulls you into the intensity of lived experience, where every song feels like a scene unfolding in real time. It isn’t just an album, it’s a landscape of emotion and a series of vignettes that chart the intimate, often messy terrain of youth, longing, and self-discovery. Across the record, she moves seamlessly between moments of vulnerability and bursts of dramatic clarity, capturing the emotional duality of someone navigating their own story. There’s a meticulousness to the way she crafts each song: every synth swell and vocal inflection feels unapologetic and deliberate, like a carefully framed shot in a film you wish you could pause and step into.
In Cinematic Lily Kincade sifts through fleeting romance, heartbreak, and the quiet epiphanies that hit you all at once. She balances tenderness and melancholy with moments of soaring, almost euphoric clarity, giving each track a sense of motion and momentum. The album is unguarded, textured, and unapologetically personal, carrying the sting of truths we often avoid confronting and the exhilaration of reclaiming the stories we’ve lived. There’s a cinematic quality in the way she allows her inner world to unfold across the songs. Softness and strength coexist effortlessly; heartbreak and hope bleed into the same note. It’s an emotional language that feels both immediate and expansive, intimate yet universally resonant. Cinematic doesn’t reinvent Lily Kincade it reveals her, in all her contradictions and textures, with clarity, courage, and quiet authority.
In conversation, she guides us through that landscape: the moments she has protected, the reflections she has embraced, and the emotional truths she has learned to trust. What unfolds is not just an album, but a portrait of an artist in full command of her voice, her vision, and the stories she wants to tell. It’s a record that lingers long after the music fades, like the final frame of a film you can’t stop thinking about.
How would you describe your music to people who have never heard it?
“The first word that comes to mind is cinematic. I know it is the title of my album, but it truly captures the universe my music lives in. I write everything straight from the heart, so every song feels like a diary entry dressed in its own little world. I want the listener to feel like they just stepped into a story that is unfolding in real time."
The album title Cinematic immediately paints a visual. What does that word mean to you personally?
“When I hear the word cinematic, I immediately think in scenes. I think of movies, the ones that stay with you long after they end. That is why this album feels like watching a film of my life. The title track feels like the trailer, the opening moment that pulls you in, and every other song plays like a vivid scene with its own mood and color.”
Has your creative process changed since your earlier releases? If so how?
“My creative process is always changing, which is what keeps it so alive. I always build the world around the song, because the song is the most important thing to me. Nature inspires me a lot. The ocean, the city lights, even a quiet walk through LA can spark something. Sometimes a melody comes while I am driving. Sometimes a lyric shows up before I know what it means. I have started making YouTube videos showing my songwriting process, because there is something magical about capturing how it all unfolds.”
Did you have a storyline in mind when creating Cinematic, or did the songs naturally weave together that way?
“I was very intentional when putting this tracklist together. I wanted the experience to feel like pressing play on a movie and watching it from beginning to end. Every song has a place and a purpose. They were always meant to live together.”
You have always balanced light and darkness in your lyrics. What is the emotional throughline that ties the whole record together for you?
“The emotional throughline is love. I think everything in life circles back to it. The loss of love, the longing for love, the joy of love, the ache of heartbreak. Even in the moments that feel heavy, love is still there if you look for it. This album holds all of those shades.”
Crime Scene with No Evidence feels like a big statement in this release. What was the creative process like for this song?
“This song is incredibly special to me. I wrote it alone on my piano during a heartbreak that felt impossible to explain. The title Crime Scene With No Evidence came to me out of nowhere and I knew it captured exactly what I was feeling. So I sat at my piano and wrote the entire song while crying. It felt like a release I didn’t even know I needed.”
Any exciting plans for the rest of the year and into 2026?
“Always. I am designing the vinyl for this album and I am so excited. I have been collecting vinyl for years and the idea of holding my debut album in that form feels unreal. I am also writing new songs, planning releases, and dreaming up how to expand this world even more in 2026. It is going to be a very full and beautiful year.”
