Back in February, I had the pleasure of bringing you a first listen to Thin Lear’s “Guesthouse.” Just a few months later, I’m back with another premiere from this endearing, up-and-coming, Queens-based artist.

A softer, more subtle offering than what we heard previously, “Your Family” is an openhearted take set to soft, acoustic fingerpicking and layers of strings and piano. It’s authentic, speaking clearly from an organic, soulful, and emotive space. When asked about the meaning behind it, Thin Lear had this to say:

This song took me a while to write, and even longer to record, as I don’t think I fully understood what I was singing about when I initially wrote it. At the time, I had recently watched someone close to me lose their partner of many decades, and their resulting grief turned into this pattern of self-punishment and self-imposed exile.

The only way they eventually broke out of it was when they started to remember the foundational love their partner had given them. When they stopped thinking about the loss, and started thinking about what they had received and imparted in return, I could sense that person returning home again. Unfortunately, there’s this self-defeating mechanism in our brains that makes us think we deserve our grief. I watched this person climb out of that, and it was such a hard-earned victory.

We’ve now been introduced to a few tracks off of his upcoming debut album, Wooden Cave, which isn’t quite scheduled yet, but should be coming out at the end of summer. Until then, make sure to follow Thin Lear on Facebook, Spotify, and Twitter.

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