Even though this is the first release we’ve seen from Liz Dimo, she is no stranger to the music scene. Former bassist and vocalist of beloved Toronto-based experimental dream pop band, Papermaps, she has repeat performances at POP Montreal, Halifax Pop Explosion, CMJ Music Marathon, NXNE, and more under her belt. But her debut EP, Ten Years, marks something long awaited by many. Liz Dimo as what she does best: the solo artist. Considering herself a one-woman band since childhood, Dimo finally releases the EP that most who know her have been expecting for as long as they’ve known her. Except, she takes ‘solo artist’ to the extreme. Dimo writes, records, produces, performs, and mixes every track on Ten Years herself, with the only other person to touch the tracks being her Mastering Engineer, Sage Kim.

Her debut EP is largely autobiographical and draws on inspiration from 10 years of love, heartbreak, letting go, and learning to love oneself. Opening with Satellite, a gritty, punchy, and intense track with lyrics meant to induce an otherworldly experience. Dimo always envisioned this song as a psychedelic animated video, to the likes of Chad VanGaalen’s Molten Light. Being a composer for film and TV as well as a songwriter, she often sees music visually first. From there we are softly taken back into sparseness with As Happy As With You, a song title, if you listen thoughtfully, clearly and cleverly meant to complete the song’s lyrics. Terminal follows, describing something most of us have felt before, a relationship in endings leaving us battling decisions of how to let it go, peacefully or fighting to the bitter end? Dueling slide guitars stand out as a sound we’ve not yet heard on Without Omissions, but the song keeps in theme, telling a story about impossible love. Dimo has a way of poignantly describing heartbreak and disappointment, those moments of often returning to toxic situations hoping for different results. The EP comes full circle and ends with Remember, a song Dimo describes as being written to herself as a “…daily reminder of how special and beautiful we are. It took me some time, but at some point I realized I didn’t need anyone else to be special or beautiful. I already was. Remember is a reminder to myself of this.”

The songs take a journey in sound, from acoustic singer/songwriter all the way to symphonic rock, but they always maintain Liz Dimo’s unique and compelling sound. When asked how she’d perform the songs live, Dimo dryly responds, “probably with a few looping pedals, or maybe some holograms of myself.” Liz Dimo’s EP, Ten Years, will be out on December 1, 2021 and available everywhere digital music is found.