LISTEN / SHARE “APATHY CRISIS” FT. TANYA TAGAQ
BUY / STREAM “APATHY CRISIS” FT. TANYA TAGAQ
NEW MODELS OUT NOW VIA TWIN FANG RECORDS
CANADIAN TOUR CONTINUES IN 2026 BEGINNING JANUARY 21 // TICKETS HERE
LISTEN TO NEW MODELS HERE
Photo Credit : Paul Mpagi Sepuya // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Today, on the heels of her sold out Toronto album release performance and during Transgender Awareness Week, multi-hyphenate artist Vivek Shraya is sharing “Apathy Crisis” featuring Tanya Tagaq. Structurally, “Apathy Crisis” is “the most adventurous track on New Models (and perhaps in my entire discography), and I have been a longtime admirer of the way Tanya Tagaq challenges sonic boundaries, so it was thrilling to imagine how she might push this particular track even further,” says Shraya. “I’m so honoured that she said yes to this collaboration and am truly blown away by her energy on this track.”
“Working with Vivek is easy because she’s so talented,” adds Tagaq. “I approached the vocals with openness to go wherever I wanted. I let Vivek guide me.”
LISTEN / SHARE “APATHY CRISIS” FT. TANYA TAGAQ
BUY / STREAM “APATHY CRISIS” FT. TANYA TAGAQ
Single Art // DOWNLOAD HIGH RES
MORE ABOUT VIVEK SHRAYA AND NEW MODELS
‘When I’m overcome with feeling / I have to break free from words and just sing.’ An inveterate writer, Vivek Shraya knows that fewer words can carry more weight. These first lines of her new album, New Models, serve as both a thesis to the transcendent sonic experience to come, as well as an invitation to leave the burden of self-assuredness at the door. Don’t overthink—just listen. Just feel.
New Models is “me grappling with the state of the world over the past four years and eventually realizing that language, particularly English, had become so contorted and weaponized that the only way I could grieve, rage, and find comfort was to let go of it,” says Shraya. “How do you express the horror and helplessness of witnessing progress being rapidly undone—in words—when all you want to do is scream or cry?”
WATCH / SHARE “AM I DOING ENOUGH?” VIDEO
WATCH / SHARE “I DON’T KNOW WHERE I’M GOING” HERE
Shraya has dedicated much of her impressive artistic career to incisively articulating culturally loaded issues. Whether through her best-selling book I’m Afraid of Men (which Vanity Fair called “cultural rocket fuel”), her award-winning play-turned-CBC show, How To Fail As A Popstar, or her provocative visual art and installation work, Shraya has challenged the status quo by transcending her personal experiences into daring artworks. But it is music that first drew Shraya into the arts, and it’s on her 11th solo album, New Models, that Shraya redefines her musical trajectory with a bold display of boundary pushing done right.
This collection of hypnotically textured songs allows each listener to come to their own conclusions about the heavy subjects she conjures. Dread, disconnection, uncertainty—all are invoked through Shraya’s sparse, cutting lyrics, but it is her wordless vocal chanting that cuts the deepest. “How do you express—in words—the horror and helplessness of witnessing progress being rapidly undone,” Shraya explains, “when all you want to do is scream or cry?”
WATCH / SHARE “WHEN I’M OVERCOME” LYRIC VIDEO
For New Models, Shraya joined forces with long-time producer-engineer James Bunton (Donovan Woods, Celeigh Cardinal, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson). Shraya and Bunton connected a decade ago, when Shraya realized the notion of the self-producing “solo genius” was profoundly flawed, and her and Bunton have grown to share a deep bond and a common language, with Bunton producing most of Shraya’s recent music, from Part-Time Woman, her album with Queer Songbook Orchestra (2017) to her previous full-length album Baby, You’re Projecting (2023, Mint Records) and the subsequent duet versions of songs from that album with Jann Arden and Donovan Woods.
WATCH / SHARE “MORAL PANIC” (VISUALIZER) HERE
Vivek Shraya’s artistic practice has long been unrelentingly honest. She has never shied away from difficult feelings, whether harassment – her graphic novel with Ness Lee, Death Threat – professional jealousy – as she explores on her podcast, I Won’t Envy – or chronic pain – as in her new short film, Bodyrebuilding. What’s special about New Models is its insistence on moving through all the feelings possible. While no answers are uncovered, a deep desire for reconstruction and reconstitution glimmers. As Shraya intones, “everything works, until it doesn’t”—but just as crucially, “Everything hurts, until it doesn’t.” - Sam Boer
LISTEN NEW MODELS HERE
MORE ABOUT TANYA TAGAQ
From Nunavut, Tanya Tagaq is an improvisational singer, avant-garde composer and author. A member of the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award winner and recipient of multiple honorary doctorates, Tagaq is an original disruptor, a world-changing figure at the forefront of seismic social, political and environmental change. Tagaq's bestselling, award winning debut novel “Split Tooth” has been translated into multiple languages and sold around the world. She released her first children’s book “It Bears Repeating” in 2024 and this title was recently included in Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program. Her second children’s book “I’d Give You My Tail” came out in April 2025. A second novel, her fourth book, will come out in 2026. A full-length feature documentary on Tanya’s life, career and art called Ever Deadly debuted at TIFF in 2022. She has also acted in and composed for HBO’s True Detective: Night Country and Netflix series North of North, and her vocals are featured in Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning. “Split Tooth” on stage, a collaboration with Kaneza Schaal and Christopher Myers, is scheduled for debut in 2026.
TOUR DATES // TICKETS HERE
2026
Jan 21 - Victoria, BC - Metro Studio Theatre
Jan 22 - Winnipeg, MB - Winterruption WPG - Public Domain
Jan 23 - Saskatoon, SK - Winterruption YXE - Art Bar
Jan 24 - Edmonton, AB - Winterruption YEG - CKUA
Jan 30 - Calgary, AB - Jack Singer Concert Hall with Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra
VIVEK SHRAYA
OFFICIAL WEBSITE
INSTAGRAM
YOUTUBE
SPOTIFY
APPLE MUSIC