Homegrown singer-songwriters Charlie Lim and Linying are set to release their new single, Hummingbird. Hummingbird is the first project that involves both artists in a co-writing capacity. “I was working on CHECK-HOOK and had a sketch that didn’t seem to fit that album, but felt it had potential to be an interesting duet,” Charlie explains. “I’ve always loved Lin’s writing and thought her voice would be great for this tune, so I reached out to her for help.”
Clinching ‘Best Song of the Year’ by Apple Music & ‘Fresh Vibes of the Year’ at the National Youth Awards 2019, Charlie Lim’s latest album CHECK-HOOK has accumulated more than 1.5 million streams on Spotify. Charlie Lim is at the prime of his career, covering festival circuits and extensive touring in the region, namely ShoutOut Festival in Taiwan, a double bill with Japanese artist TENDRE in Tokyo, Nakasu Jazz Festival in Fukuoka, Urbanscapes in Kuala Lumpur, BigSound in Brisbane, OzAsia Festival in Adelaide, Summer Sonic in Japan, Wanderland in Manila, Jarsum International Jazz Festival in Korea – and packed the iconic Star Theatre in Singapore for his album launch.
Likewise, Linying has an international following beyond her home country of Singapore, glowing praise from Billboard, NPR Music, BBC Radio 1 and even internationally acclaimed artist Troye Sivan. “I was able to be unusually free and intuitive with this one,” says Linying regarding the collaboration. “There’s a sort of freedom that comes with writing on a song that wasn’t birthed by you, that has its parameters established…because we’re both so obsessive, I think we flourish when we do our initial halves of the work separately before coming together and synthesising all of it.”
According to Charlie, the song is about “trying to muster the courage to believe in something new, despite our tendencies to repeat past mistakes”.
