Liminal Spaces – Myles Bullen’s Dreamlike Folk-Rap Ride

Drifting Between Worlds: Myles Bullen’s Liminal Spaces

by ~dhh for dohiphop.com

There’s a quiet kind of bravery in being soft. That’s the feeling I was left with after a few deep listens to Liminal Spaces, the latest release from Portland-based poet and rapper Myles Bullen. This album doesn’t posture. It doesn’t beg for mainstream attention. It simply exists — beautifully, vulnerably, and unapologetically. And that’s exactly what makes it so captivating.

Myles has always walked a crooked, heartfelt path through music. Blurring the lines between folk punk and acoustic rap, their sound is steeped in spoken word, emotional release, and radical self-expression. Liminal Spaces feels like a natural evolution — one that floats between grief and growth, anchored by community and raw lyricism. It’s not perfect. It’s human. And honestly, that’s the point.

The album opens with “Rehab in the Sky” featuring Local News Legend, setting the tone with a cloud-light arrangement and lines that immediately disarm. It’s like a conversation overheard in a dream. From there, the title track “Liminal Spaces” lands softly but purposefully, placing you right in the emotional centre of the record. The lyrics are inward-facing, but inclusive — like a letter you weren’t supposed to read, but the writer secretly hoped you would.

Tracks like “Razorblades of Grass” and “When Death Came Knocking” are deeply affecting — peeling back layers of trauma and acceptance with lines that catch you off guard. “Grow Older” (featuring Folk Punk Dad & BlueRaspberry) is especially moving, a meditation on time and tenderness that doesn’t try to solve anything — it just sits with you. These aren’t songs written to impress — they’re here to connect, to document, to honour the liminal spaces we all pass through.

“Sky Thief,” featuring Moth Rogers, might be the album’s most accessible track — and it’s an absolute gem. There’s something about the tempo, the flow, the floating, childlike wonder of it all that makes it stick. It’s easily my favourite, and it’s the one I keep coming back to when I need to feel a little more okay about not feeling okay.

There’s also “Brunch” with Emma Ivy, which brings a sense of sweetness and lightness to the project, without ever tipping into shallow ground. Even the shortest track, “I Have a Good Outfit,” manages to be poetic in its brevity — more of a whispered thought than a verse, but still purposeful.

Liminal Spaces was mostly recorded and mixed by John Zebley, with gorgeous instrumental work from Peter Herman and contributions from an extended DIY family that includes Cecelia Bellomy, Moth Rogers, and Local News Legend. The sonic palette is lo-fi and intimate — perfectly paired with the diaristic style of Myles’s lyrics. And let’s not overlook the stunning cover art by Lewis Rossignol, which captures the fragile, surreal spirit of the project in visual form.

In a time when music is often over-produced and hollow, Liminal Spaces is refreshingly honest. It embraces the in-between. It doesn’t try to fix anything. It just feels — and in doing so, it offers a strange sort of healing.

If you’ve ever felt like you don’t belong anywhere, this album might be the place where you do.