Montreal, Quebec - based musician Alexandra Levy - who records and performs as Ada Lea - is also a painter and visual artist, and traces of her many creative abilities run throughout her debut album what we say in private, a colorful collection of profound pop songs to be released July 19.

To her, music and visual art are different vessels for communicating similar ideas. Levy’s appreciation of female artists -- including the writer Sylvia Plath, visual artists Frida Kahlo and Eva Hesse, and musicians Karen Dalton and Nina Simone -- provides inspiration and guidance, informing her use of multiple artforms as tools for self-expression. Whether it’s creating music or art, “It's a world that I can build around me and sit inside,” she says.

Through all her work, Levy explores the concept of womanhood as it feels and looks to her, as well as love and how it transforms over time. She doesn’t shy away from exploring uncomfortable and painful emotions, either. With the brightness of love, strength, and hope contrasted with the darkness of loss, suffering, isolation, and abandonment, the Ada Lea album what we say in private is a varied and vivid record that constantly seems to shift in the light, bringing together all the intricate influences she’s collected over the years.

Bold and daring, but also gentle and vulnerable, what we say in private finds new ways of presenting its vision from one inspired idea to the next, a big leap into the wider world with passion and exuberance.