Q&A: Tei Shi Manifests Joy and Liberation on ‘Make believe I make believe’
INTERVIEW
INTERVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photo Credit: Danica Robinson
TEI SHI HAS ALWAYS RESISTED DEFINITION — With her fourth album Make believe I make believe, Tei Shi steps into a new light. The Canadian-Colombian singer-songwriter and pop auteur describes the independently released record as a turning point, one where she closed the door on the sadness and anger that had shadowed her past, and instead allowed herself to lean into joy, playfulness and hope. The result is her most liberated and expansive work yet, capturing an artist fully present in her emotions and unafraid to embrace the brighter, freer sides of her artistry.
Across a decade of releases, she’s proven herself as a master of transformation, slipping between genres, blending English and Spanish with ease, and building an artistic world that refuses to fit neatly inside industry boxes.
Written and recorded during a week-long creative retreat on Vancouver Island with longtime collaborators Noah Beresin and Tommy English, the album is steeped in both intimacy and expansiveness. The natural isolation of the Pacific Northwest, paired with the absence of label pressure or outside interference, allowed Tei Shi to dive into herself with rare clarity.
“Being back home, reconnecting with family and old friends, and working without any outside voices or pressure – no label, manager or restrictions – allowed me to fully dive into my mind and emotions,” she says.
Make believe I make believe is a versatile collection that moves seamlessly between dream-pop haze, dembow rhythms, shoegaze textures, acoustic folk tenderness, left-field electronics and tropical flourishes. Tei Shi not only wrote and co-produced the project, but also co-directed its visual world, underscoring her holistic approach to artistry.
The record expands upon the reclamation themes of her 2023 project Valerie, shifting toward a place of joy, play and emotional presence. Spanning ten tracks, the album features standout singles like the sharp and defiant “Drop Dead,” the meditative “Best Be Leaving,” and “222,” a kinetic, perreo-inducing collaboration with Loyal Lobos.
Alongside the release is the bilingual focus track and video “Montón,” an enchanting ode to the sweetness of lust and surrendering to love. The shimmering visual pays homage to Tei Shi’s own roots while beautifully capturing the yearning for connection, touch, and desire amidst the glow of the dancefloor.
“‘Montón’ is a song about falling for someone, crushing hard and giving into it,” Tei Shi says. “It’s about that moment when you let go of physical boundaries and space, and you give into the sweetness of being in love. I picture it as a late night with your significant other, up all night just the two of you in your room, dancing together and tuning out the world.”
At its core, Make believe I make believe is a testament to Tei Shi’s vision: music that is culturally fluid, sonically fearless and deeply feminine. It opens a new chapter for the pop auteur while reaffirming her roots and her commitment to building art on her own terms.
Alongside today’s release, Tei Shi also announces a UK and European tour for early 2026, marking her long-awaited return to international stages. The 10-date run begins February 18 in London and makes stops in Manchester, Paris, Berlin and more before it concludes in Barcelona on March 2.
Photo Credit: Danica Robinson
LUNA: Thank you for talking to Luna. Our readers would love to get to know you and your music more. For any readers who aren’t familiar with you yet, what kind of atmosphere or emotional space do you aim to create for your listeners?
TEI SHI: I definitely like to create a feeling of escape. I always aim for something that feels a little bit magical or otherworldly with my music, and that being a texture that brings together all these different genres and sonic worlds. I always have a hard time describing my music because it spans a lot, but I like to create a loving and open environment where people can really dive into — whether it's like the sadness of it, or anger or love or positivity — all of the emotions of the human experience. I want to create something that feels otherworldly which feels like the main thread.
LUNA: Make believe I make believe marks your fourth album and second independent release. How does this album feel different from your past releases, both musically and personally?
TEI SHI: It is my fourth album, but it's actually only my second independently released one, so it was very much a new experience. Every album is, but I think this felt like the first time I was really able to make an album from start to finish by releasing everything the way that I envisioned it and the way that I wanted to do it, and that really has so much to do with the fact that I'm an independent artist.
I released my first independent album last year, which brought up several years of emotions and pent up feelings. This one was the fastest I've ever released an album, from day one of working on the music until release day is less than a year, which is really exciting for me and has made the process really different, where in the past, I was piecing together a lot of different pieces that had been coming to life and being worked on across three years. Whereas with this one, it was a week of writing and recording and really creating the album within that week, and then about eight months of tinkering with it and getting it to the final place.
The ability to have a week where I had a studio completely to myself, my collaborators there with me, and we were all completely focused on what we were doing and had no distractions. It created an atmosphere of the album being really a time capsule of this moment in all of our lives, and I was able to have a lot more freedom and a lot less external opinions, and really be able to only really listen to my own instinct and that of the people that I was making the music with. It was a very new way of making an album for me.
LUNA: What is the inspiration behind Make believe I make believe and what themes or emotions do you explore?
TEI SHI: The first half of the album has these moments of more introspective, melancholic moments that feel more like where my last album left off and acknowledging sadness and conflict from my past, but then leaving it and choosing to walk away. The second half of the album gets a lot more into a space of confidence and self assuredness and really having fun and being playful and trying to find more optimism around me. I think that you hear that in the actual sound and the energy of the songs. I would say it's closing a door to past sadness and stepping into a way more optimistic and joyful place.
LUNA: You mentioned closing the door on sadness and allowing joy and playfulness into your music with this record—what did embracing that shift teach you about yourself as an artist?
TEI SHI: I think it was almost the opposite, where I learned those things in my own life and came to a place in my own life, as a person and as an artist, where I was reclaiming joy in a lot of things that I had lost that over time and finding other outlets in my life that were contributing to me feeling way more confident and in control of myself. That bled into the music more than the making of the music, teaching me that I went through two years of crawling out of a period of my life that felt really dark and really unhealthy, and finding my way to a much more grounded, centered, reinvigorated place in my day-to-day life. When it came time to write and make this music, I already felt in more of an optimistic place. I think from there, it allowed me to dip into these other emotional spaces that I haven’t really explored that much in my past work.
LUNA: What was it like writing and recording the album in just one week? Did the time constraint shape the sound or spontaneity of the music?
TEI SHI: I think it definitely shaped the album, because I went into it having a really focused idea of the fact that I wanted to come out of that week with an album. In a weird way, it created this environment where we all just felt like we could do anything and just play, and it would somehow materialize. That's exactly what happened. Having the ability to have access to a studio nonstop, and also we were staying in the same building that the studio was in, so we were working, sleeping, waking up, working, sleeping. That created a constant process that was uninterrupted. I really loved that. I would like to make all my albums that way. We still had a period of time afterwards where we were able to let the songs breathe and figure out what else they needed or how one song would work with another. It still had time to reveal itself. The writing and the initial creation happening within a week, really, is why it sounds the way it does.
LUNA: How did working with Noah Beresin and Tommy English in such an isolated, nature-rich setting impact the overall production of the songs?
TEI SHI: It was great. We've really only worked together in LA studio settings before, so it was really cool to be able to bring them to a place that I was pretty familiar with and was aware of the magic there that they had never been to. Seeing them discover a really special place was really cool for me. We were all really able to disconnect from emails and text messages and do not disturb. It’s actually such a rare thing to be able to achieve when you're making music. I'm really grateful that I had that situation, so I was able to get them to leave their lives behind for a brief time and really focus on what we were doing.
Even though we were working really hard and were really busy, it was also a break for all of us. We were all able to step away from our home lives for a second and be in this beautiful place with gorgeous weather and looking at the stars and the mountains and then recording, and then going in the hot tub and then recording some more and going through hikes. I think that we all really needed a break like that.
Also, because we had this really amazing studio and this really beautiful space, we were leaning towards different instruments and sounds that we normally wouldn't gravitate to immediately, because everything sounded majestic in there. Everything in the context always ends up informing what comes out of it. I think in this case, the nature of the space, the ability to disconnect the access to the recording and the space at any time, created that environment where something like this came to life.
LUNA: Do you have a personal favorite song on the album — one that feels closest to your heart or most revealing of who Tei Shi is right now?
TEI SHI: In this moment, “Don’t Cry” is resonating with me a lot, because that was one that I wrote from the perspective of talking to a friend who’s having a hard time with the highs and the lows, and trying to talk that friend into accepting those highs and lows, and trying to comfort and reassure somebody else. In the end, it was very much a message that I think I needed to hear from myself too, and that's something that I experience almost every day in doing what I do is the extreme emotional highs and lows of this career. Going into album release week, I'm checking in with that song, because I always remind myself to not give in to the lows and not get sucked down into that. Sonically, that's where I'm at right now.
LUNA: You’ve been a champion of artistic independence throughout your career. How has self-releasing music shaped your relationship with your art and your audience?
TEI SHI: I think it's redefined all of it for me. I can't emphasize enough how much my life changed and my relationship to what I do changed when I finally felt that I could look towards the future in a positive way and not feel that my future was completely conditioned by a contract that I had with a company or with a person. Those kinds of experiences of ending up in maybe a shitty contract or a deal that turned sour and you don't have the ability to get out of it, can just completely crush your creativity. I've definitely felt that I got to that place a few times throughout the last number of years, and so getting to a place where I was finally free and I didn't have to think about asking anyone for permission for anything immediately, the creativity started flowing again. I felt inspired again. I felt like I could hear myself think again. All of these things have redefined the way that I feel in my life and feel in the world, and also the way that I approach my music. I feel so much more excited and invested in what I'm doing, because I know that it really is like from me to you, versus going through a whole process of being questioned and adapted and marketed.
LUNA: Are there any messages or narratives you hope younger women and femme-identifying listeners especially can connect with or find power in Make believe I make believe?
TEI SHI: The idea of the title, to me, is about this inner power that we all have when it comes to imagination. I think that anybody who is creative and has a vision has a dream, and for those of us who've had to navigate spaces and industry, an industry that is very male dominated, it can be really hard to follow that vision and that instinct.
I hope that it can serve as an example to anybody who may be an aspiring artist or an artist who's aspiring to make something new. I hope that it can be an example that you don't need a label. You don't need this huge team. You just need to be in a good place with yourself and with your own vision. Also focus on surrounding yourself with the collaborators, the people that are going to follow your lead and are amplifying what you want to create. It took me a long time to find those collaborators, and having people like Noah and Tommy. I hope that it can serve as evidence that this was made by three friends. This was made in a week. This was made without a label, without a manager, and hopefully just encourages people to continue to make believe and bring their imagination to fruition .I hope that that comes across.
LUNA: What’s fueling your fire right now — musically or personally — that’s pushing you into this next chapter?
TEI SHI: Observing what's going on in creative spaces that are not necessarily my own. I'm really loving just tuning into certain comedians, theater performers or DJs, and really getting to know more about those people that I admire. It's giving me a perspective that I can then bring into what I do, even though it's different from these people. I think nourishing myself with creative voices that aren't necessarily in my own lane. I'm starting to put together my live show, and I'm just getting really pumped and excited about that, because it's always such a fun process to go from nothing to something that can be on a stage and captivate people for an hour and a half. I'm having a lot of fun with stage design and lighting and these things that are getting me really pumped for the tour, and will hopefully carry me through the rest of this year until I am ready to get back in the studio.
LUNA: How are you feeling in this current era of your career and what does the rest of the year look like for you that you would love to share with Luna?
TEI SHI: I'm feeling really good. I think it's a constant check in with yourself to focus more on all of the good things and on all of the good luck and the good fortune that I have, rather than what may be lacking or where I may be struggling. I do have that check in with myself probably every day, and I think that is really keeping me in a good place. The rest of this year is going to be about getting this album out there and getting more people aware of it, and diving into this tour that I'm starting next month through the US and Canada and my first show in Mexico City, so it's really just going to be a lot of touring and a lot of live performance for the rest of the year. The LA show is on September 26 at Lodge Room and I’ll be performing the album and some of my older discography. I think that the rest of the year is going to be just really living in this album and bringing it to people in person.
