A Voice Rooted in Breath and Belonging: Lena Younes Releases New Album "Ways of the Dreamer"
At its core is "Presence," the album's first single—a melancholic, lovely elegy to mark the unspoken ties that bind mother and daughter, future and past. "Presence" came as a gentle whisper after the tempest of farewell, written a month since Lena's mother died—on the eve of her own daughter's first birthday. This elegiac gift is as much a farewell as it is a ceremony of remembrance, a love letter to all the ancestors who speak in bone and gesture, smile and voice. Within it, Lena wrestles with the bittersweet cadence of inheritance: her daughter, grandmotherless like herself, still carries the resonances of a woman she'll never meet. In song, Lena makes room for what can't be seen but is always sensed.
The making of "Ways of the Dreamer" is a story of healing alchemy itself. Six years in development, the album emerged from fertile ground of spiritual practice and breathing. From Portuguese wardrobe-studio to English producer Sebastian Brice's humble console, each song bears the imprint of distance bridged by intention. Like nine stepping stones across the waters of memory, identity, and rebirth, Lena guides us from the contemplative depths of "Human" to the open-eyed awe of "Ways of the Dreamer.".
But Lena's art extends outside the field of music. With the release of a lyric book of poems and musings, she asks her listeners to do more than listen—to breathe with her—to stay in between inhale and exhale, holy space. A yoga and breathwork teacher for many years, Lena incorporates these practices into her songwriting process, and the experience is as complete as it is intimate. "Ways of the Dreamer" is a soul tool, calling us home to ourselves and to the lineage we carry on.
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