Northern Dial Artist Profile

Lia Pappas-Kemps

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Toronto singer-songwriter Lia Pappas-Kemps first reached a broad audience as an actor on Anne with an E, but her music has developed into a distinct creative identity built around intimate writing, guitar-led arrangements and a willingness to let songs unfold gradually. Early releases including the EP Gleam introduced a restrained alternative-folk sound and helped establish her as an emerging songwriter rather than an actor crossing casually into music. Songs such as "Jinx" and "Revolving Doors" drew attention for their emotional specificity and careful pacing, setting up a fuller debut era.

Her first full-length album, Winged, arrived in March 2026 through Coalition Music. Recorded in Toronto, the album expands the quieter textures of her earlier work with moments of distorted alternative rock, spacious production and more dynamic band arrangements. "Towers" became an early focal point, pairing a relationship-at-the-breaking-point lyric with a more forceful guitar sound, while the album as a whole showed a young songwriter moving beyond the scale of an introductory EP without losing the close-up quality of her writing.

Pappas-Kemps remains early in her recording career, which is important context for assessing her significance. She is not yet a legacy figure, but Winged places her within a strong Toronto lineage of singer-songwriters who blur folk intimacy, indie rock and literate pop writing. Her profile is worth following because the transition from Gleam to a confident debut album suggests an artist developing a durable songwriting voice rather than simply building momentum around a single breakout track.