There are moments when music needs to confront the darkness and there are moments when it simply needs to let you breathe.
For PLANESWALKERS, the lightwave electronic ambient duo of topliner/vocalist Arden Leigh and composer/producer Andrew Means, that moment has arrived with “Great Big Blue,” the duo’s new standalone single and their first new release following the debut EP The Mind Room, which arrived just two weeks ago.
And after spending The Mind Room immersed in the difficult, deeply personal territory of healing from extreme trauma through remote work, PLANESWALKERS aren’t returning to the darkness. They’re looking toward the horizon.
“Great Big Blue” represents a deliberate shift in perspective for PLANESWALKERS a chance to step away from the emotional weight of their debut EP and embrace something considerably lighter, warmer and more expansive.
Following the release of The Mind Room, Leigh began exploring an assortment of tracks sent to her by Means, searching for the next piece of music that would inspire her creatively. When she landed on the composition that would become “Great Big Blue,” the direction was immediately different.
Instead of revisiting trauma, pain or the complicated process of healing, Leigh decided to write about something much lighter.
The result is a song that feels like an exhale.
Built around PLANESWALKERS signature lightwave electronic ambient aesthetic, “Great Big Blue” showcases the duo’s ability to create immersive soundscapes while allowing the emotional center of the song to remain intimate and human. Means’ atmospheric production creates the sonic world, while Leigh’s vocals provide the emotional thread running through it.
Where The Mind Room asked listeners to sit with difficult experiences, “Great Big Blue” invites them to step outside of them.
It’s a reminder that even after navigating some of life’s darkest places, there is still room for wonder, imagination, beauty and light.
The timing of the single is particularly meaningful for PLANESWALKERS.
The Mind Room established the duo as an electronic ambient project unafraid to explore challenging subject matter and deeply personal emotional territory. Written for and about the healing of extreme trauma via remote work, the EP served as both a creative outlet and an exploration of what recovery can look like when the world around you is anything but simple.
But healing isn’t a straight line and neither is creativity. Sometimes healing means confronting what hurts.
Sometimes it means putting it down for a while and looking at something beautiful instead.
That’s where “Great Big Blue” enters the story.
Rather than functioning as a continuation of The Mind Room, the new single feels more like a window opening after spending too long inside.
Planeswalkers aren’t abandoning the emotional depth that shaped their debut. They’re showing listeners another side of it.
The side where you can finally look up.
The side where the world feels a little bigger.
The side where there’s still something worth chasing.
MORE ABOUT THE SONG:
?“A lot of my divinations have predicted that in the coming years I’m going to be traveling a lot for reasons both personal and professional,” said Arden, “and I thought, why not write that into existence in the most blissful and luxurious way possible?”
Arden and Andrew are both occult practitioners, which is how the duo got their name. Arden, who is the spiritual lineage heir of magician Grant Morrison, has spoken at length about how her songwriting functions as narrative magick that weaves reality into being, often in ways that are hard to predict.
“This past year I experienced a number of delays in my timelines due to a series of magickal attacks, which unfortunately are often par for the course when you’re a figure in the occult community or working at an advanced level. Andrew was really helpful as a spirit medium in identifying what was going on. When I had finally banished them, I thought the wisest thing to do would be to sing my positive predictions back into being. That’s also why the track features a voiceover from Andrew as the flight captain announcing that there are no delays from any astral interference. It’s not just about a literal flight, it’s also about creating a smooth journey into one’s future.”
Andrew said, “It was exactly the vibe I had in mind when I was composing the track. I had imagined something laid back, chill, and smooth. Arden’s vocal fit perfectly, and it was the fastest process we’ve had making a song so far.”
Andrew and Arden recorded the song in Andrew’s home studio over two sessions in July and decided to drop it just two weeks after the release of their debut EP to keep the momentum of their project going.
“I wanted to write a sort of more contemporary version of something like Gwen Stefani’s ‘Luxurious,’ with a chill, glottal fry, Sophie Powers-style delivery,” Arden said. “I think Andrew’s part brings what could have been a really materialistic song back into the realm of spirituality that we like to play in. At the same time though, it doesn’t need to be that deep. Sometimes you’re allowed to just have fun, in music and in magick.”
PLANESWALKERS, debuting in 2026, is the project of singer-songwriter Arden Leigh (Arden & the Wolves) and Andrew Means (3TEETH, Patriarchy) coming together to create cutting-edge ambient electronica music with vocals and lyrics shaped by their shared occult passions. They think of their genre as “lightwave” or “angel pop,” though they plan on continuing to push the boundaries of their sound as they go.
Andrew is an innovative composer and performer known for blending genres and creating immersive musical experiences from classical compositions to contemporary pieces, as well as a self taught spirit medium. Arden’s songwriting functions almost inevitably as a foundational cornerstone of her magickal practice as she sings her desired realities into being or transmutes hardships into the wisdom of experience.