72RHR is the solo album by Vancouver-born Canadian multimedia artist Sook-Yin Lee — actress, filmmaker, broadcaster, and musician — released May 29, 2026 on Toronto independent label Hand Drawn Dracula, her first album in five years. The title refers to 72 beats per minute, the optimal resting heart rate, and functions as both a conceptual anchor and a creative constraint: every song on the album was composed and recorded at exactly 72 BPM. Lee wrote, arranged, performed, produced, engineered, and recorded the album herself entirely — electronics, guitars, woodwinds, percussion, and samples — with mixing handled by Steve Chahley (U.S. Girls, Guv). As described on her Bandcamp page, the album is her response to "an upturned world where systems are collapsing," using the meditative pulse of the resting heartbeat to navigate a sonic journey through discord and harmony.Despite that meditative tempo framework, the album is far from passive or calm. Exclaim! called it "arguably her finest work yet" and "perhaps the greatest work of art in her entire multi-disciplinary career," noting that the album opens with "a chunky downtempo house beat" on "Mending Wall" and moves through what Bandcamp described as "dizzying industrial-strength pop" with "sideways melodies inside a computerized stomp." RANGE highlighted standout track "Digital Fire" — with its warped vocals, metallic production, and looped phrases — as capturing "the loose, exploratory energy of someone still genuinely curious about what sound can do," observing that even at its harshest it never feels alienating. Available on CD and a limited collector's edition pressing of just 100 black vinyl LPs, 72RHR arrives alongside a multimedia album release celebration at Toronto's Baby G on June 26, featuring poets, dancers, and live musicians.
