On Uh Oh, the eleven new, original songs find Watson meditating on the idea of life being a series of “uh ohs”, a little phrase uttered in response to everything from childhood accidents to our most overwhelming anxieties. For Watson, it came to mind when faced with the biggest “uh oh” that a singer could endure: he lost his voice. Unsure if or when he would be able to sing again, his new album took a new shape. A collection of collaborations with friends and strangers; artists that he wanted to hear sing. Uh Oh represents a vision that Watson has chased for his entire life, the culmination of 20 years of musical exploration and lived experience that enabled him to translate the films in his mind to the sounds and words swirling in your ears.

Most of the songs on Uh Oh see Watson and his long-time bandmates, collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Mishka Stein, Olivier Fairfield, and co-vocalist Ariel Engle (La Force) joined by a guest singer. The featured vocalists range from the iconic voices he’s idolized for years – Martha Wainwright – to ones he discovered through Instagram scrolling like Solann and local Quebec favorite Klô Pelgag, and include international phenoms MARO, Hohnen Ford, November Ultra, JUNO Award winner Charlotte Cardin, Félix award winner Anachnid, and a friend he met when she worked the counter at this local coffee shop, Charlotte Oleena. “Every singer has these different magical powers on this record, and each song kind of represents that,” Watson says.

Watson – a Polaris Music Prize winner whose song “Je te laisserai des mots” recently became the first French language song to cross 1 billion streams on Spotify – reflects on the situation of making music after losing his voice by saying: “Obviously, I like singing for people, but I was really enjoying my Modular [synth] and diving into instrumental music”. A natural inclination for Watson who’s composed over 15 film scores to date. “But then I was like, ‘Oh, it’d be cool to write songs for all these different singers that I really want to hear sing – I’ll find my way out of this situation that way.’ Because my voice wasn’t supposed to come back. And when it did, I just thought having all these other singers featured was still a cooler idea for a record than me singing alone.”

Hearing how the songs on Uh Oh flow seamlessly into one another, one might never guess that it was recorded in multiple locations – Montreal, New Orleans, L.A., Mexico City, Paris – with a minimalist approach, using just two microphones, in mostly one or two takes. And one might perhaps not guess that Watson spent two months studying Cardi B’s “Up” to get the mix just right.

Patrick Watson has reached gold and platinum status in multiple countries, including five certified gold albums in Canada, and his shows sell out around the world. Over the course of his career, Patrick has retained the uncanny ability to coexist in mainstream pop-culture spaces and on the avant-garde fringes. Patrick’s songs have been featured in primetime crowd-pleasers like Grey’s Anatomy and This Is Us, as well as in multiple arthouse films from Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique), Wim Wenders (Perfect Days), Philippe Falardeau (C’est pas moi, je le jure!) and more. He’s an artist who’s as comfortable performing impromptu pop-up shows on the train tracks in a Quebec mining town as he is leading the BBC Orchestra at London’s prestigious Barbican. He’s an in-demand composer with over 15 film scores under his belt. He was awarded the prestigious inaugural Impact Award at the 2024 Canadian Sync Awards. Watson’s viral single "Je te laisserai des mots" became the first French song to accumulate 1 billion streams on Spotify.