Transgender folk artist Bells Larsen’s newest album, “Blurring Time,” features two distinct voices throughout, but they are both his.
It all started as a preservation project, as the singer — who has been writing heartfelt folk tunes since age 15 — began to take physical steps toward gender transition.
He was worried about how hormone therapy might change his voice, and therefore, his music.
“When we think of the way transition looks for transmasc people who want to pursue a physical transition, one of the first things we think about is that their voice gets deeper,” Larsen told The Guardian earlier this year.
“The thought of that was very euphoric for me, but also scary, because I didn’t know how it would impact my main instrument.”
Larsen was eager to finally get the gender-affirming treatment they needed, but didn’t want to lose the main mode of expression they had long relied on.
So, he recorded all of the songs that would be featured on “Blurring Time,” first with a higher voice, then to be revisited after starting hormone replacement therapy.
When his voice began to deepen, he worked with a vocal coach and re-recorded each song, layering his voices together. The result is a duet across time, gender identity, and space.
“I shaped my transition around my new album by recording my vocals before and after starting hormones. It sounds like a duet, but it’s all me,” Larsen shared in a recent TikTok post.
“The result is a collection of songs that marry the past and present. My hope is that this music will illustrate the fact that we’re all in a constant state of flux.”
Larsen has given credit to several social media creators who have duetted themselves in similar ways, but he believes it is the first actual album to be recorded and commercially available to listeners using this vocal approach.
Along with being an ambitious creative endeavor, it also serves as a time capsule for Larsen, documenting their journey into a more true sense of self.
“It was really important for me to document the before and after together, holding hands in the same song, because I have a lot of love for my past self,” he told The Line of Best Fit. “I couldn’t be here without that version of myself.”
Despite the gentle foray into transition — and the warm reception his album has received — the singer still faces social hurdles.
At first, he planned to tour the United States with the album, but as a Canadian, he was told that he would no longer be able to obtain a visa to tour in the U.S. because of new immigration laws under the Trump administration that only recognize forms of identification that correspond with a person’s assigned sex at birth.
“To put it super plainly, because I'm trans (and have an M on my passport), I can't tour the States,” he wrote to his audience.
The timing is especially painful, since the material he would be touring is completely centered around his gender transition.
“Even prior to this administration, trans people faced more hurdles with traveling, because you’re always at the behest of basically whatever border agent you get,” Larsen told The Guardian. “That creates an opportunity to be targeted, singled out, and harassed. Now there’s a top-down, concerted effort to create barriers for travel for trans people.”
While he doesn’t want to let down U.S. fans, he told The Guardian that he has no interest in crossing the border, “in the same way that you probably don’t want to date someone who doesn’t want to date you.”
Mostly, though, he is sad for the loss of connection that queer and trans people in the U.S. desperately need right now.
“I am more and more gutted with every day that passes by the (seeming) dissonance between the world in which I created this project and the world into which I am releasing it,” Larsen wrote in their announcement cancelling the U.S. tour.
“I was hoping that the album would help me break into the U.S. music market and connect with cool, like-minded American musicians. More than anything, though, I just really wanted to perform my album for queer and trans people in the U.S. who saw their stories reflected in my own.”
He will still tour the new music in Canada and Europe. And the existence of Larsen’s album is proof that policy is not the only stepping stone to progress.
“I'm so thankful for the work my queer and trans community members have done that has allowed me to exist more truthfully,” he concluded on Instagram.
“There is no policy that can undo your existence,” he added to The Guardian. “There is no politician who gets to decide that you exist or don’t exist. You are who you say you are, and that’s enough.”
And for anyone who has access to streaming platforms, “Blurring Time” is available night and day, anywhere in the world.
“I've moved through time / But somehow I'm exactly the same,” Larsen sings on his new tune “Might.”
“Maybe it's time / That moves through me inviting change.”
Header image courtesy of Bells Larsen/TikTok
