WAYFINDING ANNOUNCE FIRST NEW MUSIC SINCE 2023’S SELF-TITLED RELEASE A NEST OF WRENS, OUT OCTOBER 9, 2026, VIA ARE YOU GIVING ME THE HI-HAT
WATCH // SHARE “KATHLEEN” LYRIC VIDEO HERE
BUY // STREAM “KATHLEEN” HERE
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Today, Wayfinding, the trio of Cassia Hardy (Wares), Ryan Beattie (Frog Eyes, Himalayan Bear), and Marek Tyler (ASKO, nêhiyawak) announce their upcoming album, A Nest of Wrens. The title of the new record refers to a poem by Michael Hartnett which explores the abiding power of our most profound early creative or aesthetic connections; those signal inspirations which tell us, in a language we don’t yet understand, who we want to be and what that might ask of us. We carry these experiences with us as memory, but our memory changes shape along with the other parts of our identity as we proceed towards and through adulthood. Their significance is muted as they take their place as but one of many memories. The creative person remains awake to the truth and importance of those early realizations by seeking out new ways of expressing and building, by reckoning with the present by questioning memory, and filling the parts of themself that time has emptied out with new community and shared purpose.
These things are rendered by the songs on A Nest of Wrens as a whirling, roaring autumn stormcloud of richly textured guitar interplay shot through with startling melodic flashes and flickering synthesizers, supported by a sturdy and heartening rhythm which both establishes a horizon to be moved towards, and promises calm at the centre. The sounds of the welcoming of a new friend, the departure of a sibling, an enduring alliance.
For the album’s first single, “Kathleen”, as Beattie explains, “I wanted an anthemic chorus to contrast the bitterness left by these toxic scenes. Cassia came up with a beautiful kaleidoscopic bridge section. It’s a gauntly tune about the bad times - it’s about salad days gone to rot and the wondering, from time to time, who’s still living there.” Tyler adds, “For me, Kathleen is a song, played loud in your car with the windows rolled down when you're leaving town '.
WATCH // SHARE “KATHLEEN” LYRIC VIDEO HERE
BUY // STREAM “KATHLEEN” HERE
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MORE ABOUT WAYFINDING
The alliance between drummer Marek Tyler and principal songwriter and guitarist Ryan Beattie has endured for almost 20 years, not only on and off in Beattie’s Himalayan Bear, but also together as backing for other musicians like The New Pornographers’ Kathryn Calder.
Wayfinding was conceived as a collaboration between them that would point Beattie’s writing away from the modes he was most comfortable operating in by responding purposefully to Tyler’s direction and to the contributions of Tyler’s bandmate in nêhiyawak, multi-instrumentalist Matthew Cardinal. Cardinal has since departed Wayfinding, but not before Cassia Hardy of Wares was invited in as another writer and instrumentalist. The four of them challenged themselves to approach the materials assembled for A Nest of Wrens from new perspectives in performance and expression, and to actively mine the energy of those early emotions, first felt by young quickening souls for whom everything is new and a source of amazement.
“Playing in Wayfinding requires trust in the process and letting go of the result,” explains Tyler. “It’s like speaking from the heart. Sometimes you didn’t know that you needed to say something until it had been voiced.”
A NEST OF WRENS TRACKLIST
01 Poisoner
02 Kathleen
03 Sister Self
04 You Are Not Singing
05 Shrapnel
06 Belly Of Earth
07 Sudden Water
08 Nest of Wrens