Make Believe: JT Leon (UK) & cyntrix (KY) release a 13-years-in-the-making Queer Alt Pop Anthem
- Cyntrix Productions
- Jul 25
- 8 min read
Make Believe
JT Leon & cyntrix
What started as an online exchange between two teenagers on ReverbNation in the late 2000s has grown into a cathartic dream-pop anthem over a decade in the making. “Make Believe” is the new single from Louisville-based producer cyntrix and UK-based artist JT Leon: a slow-burning track about queer defiance and holding onto hope in a collapsing world. It releases July 24, 2025.
The Story of Make Believe
“Every time I opened the project file, I had changed, JT had changed, and so had the song.” – cyntrix
The first version of Make Believe was started in 2012 — a simple demo shared online between cyntrix (Richard Stottman) in Louisville and JT Leon in Liverpool. What followed was a 13-year journey of friendship, loss, growth, and artistic evolution. The two artists would return to the track again and again, reshaping it with new perspectives.
The final result blends lush ambient synths, emotionally raw vocals, and a swelling electronic backdrop — fusing bedroom-pop intimacy with cinematic atmosphere.
“This is a song about survival. About choosing to keep going when everything tells you to give up. About dissociation, queerness, and the power of imagining a better version of yourself.” – JT Leon
JT Leon: social & personal meaning of 'Make Believe'
Make Believe is ultimately a song about the defiant power of hope, in making the difficult choice to put your faith in yourself, humanity and even in the universe, that we can transform into something fairer, and more humane, in spite of the horrors that continue to depress and oppress us. To cyntrix’s first version of the beat, I wrote the initial lyrics (which haven’t been changed all that much) and every part of the topline when I was 15 years old, and now at 28, the lyrics resonate even more with what’s going on in the world. The most recent, ongoing pushbacks on LGBTQ+ rights, the emboldening of fascist politics, and the ever-present climate breakdown, they all underscore the anxiety here, an anxiety that could drown you in a sea of inaction, if you let it take too much hold.
There is absolutely queer and minority defiance at the core of this song too. ‘I know the air now feels like poison, their fear bleaching out all our colours’ is all about knowing that you will be fundamentally hated and vilified for daring to exist, and still daring to live your life… that’s a power no one can take from you. Sometimes the ‘price to be free, is make believe’, choosing to be proudly yourself in a world that finds your life an inconvenience to a convenient, fearful narrative.
In many ways this song became self-prophetic, too. I’ve taken a few years break from my own music, spending the time immersing myself in the marketing and tutoring of other people, work I do love. At the back of my mind though, was an insistent itch that wasn’t fully scratched, a soul urge unfulfilled, and potential left dangling in suspension. So when I came back to ‘Make Believe’ in 2025, I knew we had to dial up that beautiful intensity, dancing, crying, and fighting for my own (and our collective) futures at what can often feel like the end of the world.
I’m so proud of what me and cyntrix have done here, it really feels like a labor of love, patience, and genuine passion for music. When we first met online in the late 00s, we were teenagers making and uploading music onto early bedroom-producer platforms like Reverbnation and Soundcloud, me uploading from Liverpool, UK, and cyntrix from Louisville, KY USA. Make Believe wasn’t the first track we demoed together, but it was one that felt immediately special, in all it’s alternative dance-pop glory.
As the lead single for my October 2025 EP ‘Sounds You Never Heard Pt .2’, Make Believe is a song 13 years in the making, that sits amongst 4 others that all hold history as unreleased/unavailable music that I nearly let fade into obscurity, they were sounds you (almost) never heard, because fear, life, and time continued to get in the way. It feels special to come back to Make Believe as the core statement for the EP itself - music has a transformative power, and I’m no longer afraid to tap into it.
cyntrix: history of the song & the power of waiting
Make Believe has been a long time coming. JT Leon and I started this song over a decade ago, a slow-burning collab that’s grown and evolved alongside ourselves.
We first connected through ReverbNation back in the late 00s, with both of us were sitting at the top of our respective local genre charts. We got to chatting and I sent them a demo. Within a week, they sent back a draft of the lyrics. From there, the track became something we’d return to in phases, working on it, walking away, and coming back to it again with fresh ears and new perspectives.
The finished version blends the best of both of our worlds. JT brought their signature lyrical brilliance and vocal delivery, while I focused on building a dynamic sonic landscape, one that starts small and intimate, then swells into an atmospheric climax. I wanted it to feel like the walls were closing in and opening up at the same time. That tension and release mirrors how the track came together: slowly, deliberately, and with a lot of emotional weight behind it.
With Make Believe, we never forced anything. We let the song grow with us. Every time I opened the project file, I had changed, JT had changed, and so had the song. That freedom gave us space to really embed our identities into it. There’s no rush here, no gimmick. Just two artists giving a song the time it needed to become what it wanted to be.
To me, Make Believe is about trusting the long arc. It’s proof that you don’t have to abandon an idea just because it takes time. Sometimes a track isn’t done until you’re ready, and when that moment comes, it hits different. This one’s been with me through so many chapters of life, and I’m proud it’s finally ready to be heard.
Make Believe (& More Sounds)
Following the single release, the full companion EP Make Believe (& More Sounds) will arrive on August 7, 2025. This expanded release reimagines the track through multiple sonic lenses — including an Extended Mix, Slowed + Reverb mix, Nightcore version, Instrumental, and Vox-only top line edit. It also includes a Bandcamp-exclusive demo from 2014, giving listeners a rare glimpse into the song’s earliest form.
Artist Bios
JT Leon (they/them)
Liverpool, UK
Deep, dramatic, and innately defiant, Bristol-based singer-songwriter/producer JT Leon is an architect of music with an empowering core. Noted for their expressive vocal delivery and evocative lyrical prowess, JT conjures empathetic songwriting from their experiences as a world-weary, queer artist who has struggled under the weight of mental illness.
While JT’s debut EP, ‘Sounds You Never Heard Pt. 1’, found an audience that connected with its ‘haunting’, ‘unique’, darkwave sonics, the knowing yet vulnerable indie-folk of 2022’s ‘Closure’ gained support from BBC Radio Bristol, who selected the track as one of their ‘Big New Sounds’.
October 2025 sees the release of ‘Sounds You Never Heard Pt. 2’, a follow-up that channels a reinvigorated JT through an intense prism of mystical electronica, flamboyant art pop, and underground club influences.
cyntrix (he/they)
Louisville, KY
cyntrix is a genre-bending producer, composer, and audio engineer based in Louisville, KY. Driven by a relentless creative vision sharpened by years in independent media and performance, cyntrix blends electronic, hip-hop, ambient, and experimental influences into immersive, high-concept soundscapes.
With a start in the 2010s 'Louisville Metro Pop Punk’ movement as the keys player of band Think Harder, Richard Stottman’s love for synths pulled them deeper into the world of sound design. Eventually deciding on the moniker ‘cyntrix’, his goal quickly became to create a sound that bridges popular sounds with cinematic influences drawn from video games and film. Drifting between reality and dreamspace, cyntrix coined the term ‘Existential Dread Music’ as their signature style.
With music that carries such a heavy sonic weight, cyntrix ensures to balance this with a dose of absurdist humor, allowing their tracks to more easily access people who are going through hard times, as something that resonates, heals, and even sparks inspiration.
Lyrics
[Verse 1]
Can we turn to dust when it's over?
I just wanna lie down and wither
This flower has had its day
Overwatered with its roots astray
As I
I hope for release
From many things
This game of hide and seek
[Pre-Chorus 1]
I believe
This could be
The third degree
For you and me
[Chorus]
To dive is to drown
To push is to pull
To awaken is to dream
To turn cold from a sun
Price to be free
It's make-believe
To love is to live
To exhale is to burn
To riot is to run
And be free from our hurt
Now you can see
It's make-believe
[Verse 2]
Yet I
I hold this faith
An agnostic thing
Spirituality without deity
[Pre-Chorus 2]
I believe
In what could be
In tears and dreams
In you and me
[Chorus]
To dive is to drown
To push is to pull
To awaken is to dream
To turn cold from a sun
Price to be free
It's make-believe
To love is to live
To exhale is to burn
To riot is to run
And be free from our hurt
Now you can see
It's make-believe
[Middle 8]
No need to count the stars
We are each other's Gods
My body is a temple
And my body is yours
Oh
No need to count the stars
We are each other's Gods
My body is a temple
And my body is yours
[Verse 3]
I know the air now feels like poison
Their fear bleaching out all our colours
Stained glass windows shattered yet open
The glow outside now twisted and broken
[Pre-Chorus 3]
But I
Believe
Truly
In you and me
[Chorus]
(Yeah) To dive is to drown
To push is to pull
To awaken is to dream
To turn cold from a sun
(Make-believe) Price to be free
It's make-believe
(It’s make-believe) To love is to live
To exhale is to burn
(To make-believe) To riot is to run
And be free from our hurt
(Make-believe) Now you can see
It's make-believe
Yes I believe (I believe)
In you and me (in you and me)
Truly (truly)
That this is worth the pain (this is worth the pain)
And I believe (I believe)
In you and me (in you and me)
Truly (Truly)
That this is worth the pain
[Outro]
It’s make-believe
Track Credits
JT Leon
• Composition, lyrics, arrangement
• Vocals, backing vocals.
• Recording engineering, executive production, assistant engineering
• Creative direction, final photo edits.
Cyntrix
• Composition, arrangement
• Electric bass, electric guitar, keys, piano, programming
• Recording engineering, creative production, mixing, mastering.
Dotty McCormack
• Photography, creative direction, initial photo edits
Finn Crawley, of Jimmy's Studio
• Photography assistance, creative assistance, BTS footage
Ellie Sorensen, of Crosstown PR
• PR management
If you’ve ever felt lost in your own head, unsure where you end and the world begins — this one’s for you.
Follow along as the rest of Sounds You Never Heard Pt. 2 unfolds, and let Make Believe remind you that holding onto hope is its own kind of rebellion.
© 2025 Cyntrix Productions — independently made, endlessly believed in.