Ralph Lioran

Ralph Lioran writes the kind of ballads people play when they're trying not to fall apart. The Swiss singer-songwriter makes intimate modern pop with the warmth of classic crooners and the unguarded honesty of confessional songwriting — every lyric drawn from his own life: loss, a childhood that wasn't soft, the long wait for love that doesn't leave at sunrise. Music ran through his family long before him; from his grandfather, a church-choir conductor, he inherited a deep love of piano and violin, and both run through nearly every song he makes — the violins, to him, sounding like the voices of angels. Through all of it there has been Queen, his French Bulldog named after Queen Elizabeth II, the small, faithful presence at the center of his story. Lioran isn't trying to be the next anyone — he's making the records he himself would want to find on a quiet evening, when no one is watching.