THE DEARS SIGN WITH NEXT DOOR RECORDS, SHARE NEW SINGLE / VIDEO, ANNOUNCE FALL TOUR DATES

Photo Credit : Richmond Lam // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, The Dears are announcing their recent signing with Next Door Records (The Weather Station, Yves Jarvis, Charlotte Cornfield) by sharing the new single, “Babe, We’ll Find A Way”, their first new release since Lovers Rock (2020). Of the new single, singer / guitarist Murray Lightburn says, “The music came down all at once, strings, guitar –  melodies. It was so strong and vivid. It pines for the breakthrough, we know it’s there! It’s so tangible. When that happens, inner strength takes over. There’s a motivation, a reason to get out of bed. You can feel the sun on your face and maybe a little later a smile will take over.”

WATCH / SHARE “BABE, WE’LL FIND A WAY” (LYRIC VIDEO HERE
BUY / STREAM “BABE, WE’LL FIND A WAY” HERE

MORE ABOUT THE DEARS
Formed in 1995, The Dears released their first, ultra lo-fi album, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, in 2000. The orchestral, dark pop sound and dramatic live shows cemented The Dears at the foundation of the then-emerging Canadian indie-rock renaissance. Their live show was described as “the sonic equivalent of seeing the face of god.” In 2001 and 2002, they released two separate concept EPs Orchestral Pop Noir Romantique and Protest, respectively. In 2003 they released their second full-length album No Cities Left in Canada, and a string of highly anticipated shows at SXSW ‘04 prompted the international release of No Cities Left with Bella Union. Their 3rd album, Gang of Losers, came in 2006, was well received by the press, and was shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize. In 2008, the band released Missiles, followed by Degeneration Street (2011), Times Infinity Volume One (2015), Times Infinity Volume Two (2017), and Lovers Rock (2020). 

The Dears have toured the world over, including performances on Letterman (twofold), Jimmy Kimmel, Jonathan Ross and at Glastonbury, T in the Park, Wireless, Montreal Jazz Fest, Siren Festival, Coachella, Austin City Limits, V Fest, Reading and Leeds, Les Inrocks (France), Montreux Jazz Fest, Istanbul Jazz Fest, Pop Montreal, CMW, NXNE and countless appearances at SXSW. They have shared stages with Spiritualized, Broken Social Scene, Daniel Lanois, Rufus Wainwright, Zemfira, Bloc Party, Keane, Morrissey, The Tragically Hip, Metric and Death From Above, to name a few.

Murray Lightburn recently won a 2025 Canadian Screen Award for Best Original Music in a Documentary for his work on Any Other Way: The Jackie Shane Story.

The Dears will take to the stage this fall beginning with a Montreal performance on November 20. Tickets can be found HERE.

THE DEARS TOUR DATES
NOV 20: MONTREAL - LE NATIONAL
NOV 27: OTTAWA - NATIONAL ARTS CENTRE (STUDIO)
NOV 28:  TORONTO - LEE’S PALACE
NOV 29: GUELPH - SONIC HALL
NOV 30: ST CATHARINES - WAREHOUSE
DEC 1: HAMILTON - BRIDGEWORKS

YAWN RELEASES DEBUT LP, SHARES NEW VIDEO FOR “BROKEN BABY”

YAWN’S (JULIA MCDOUGALL) DEBUT LP, WISH I COULD’VE, OUT TODAY

WATCH / SHARE “BROKEN BABY” (MUSIC VIDEO) HERE

BUY / STREAM WISH I COULD’VE HERE

TOUR DATES BEGIN JUNE 18

 Photo Credit : Myriam Strong // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

For the past several years, Julia McDougall has been holed away working on her debut record as Yawn, uniting her far-ranging sensibilities into a supercharged core of misty dream-pop and electronic haze. What’s come out of the clouds are twelve carefully crafted songs that have been developed as inspiration struck from all around her. With a composition degree from Simon Fraser University and a mainstay presence in underground venues and festivals across Western Canada, McDougall’s intricately-layered pop stylings emerge in stories of longing, nostalgia, loss, and hope. 

To help celebrate today’s release of wish i could’ve, Yawn is sharing the new music video for “broken baby”, directed by Abbi Richardson and shot by Andriy Liskov. The video is “a step into an alternate reality where all of our self-deprecating thoughts and feelings are transformed into joke memes,” says McDougall. “It’s a sad-girl video about all the ways we feel that we’ve failed, about dropping every ball and being the worst versions of ourselves. What starts as an awkward show gone horribly awry leads us into a day-dream of bad thoughts and feelings which snowball into pure, uninhibited chaos. The entire dream sequence was shot in one take, and each freeze frame was carefully choreographed with prop assistants to nail the timing of each scene. The song was sped up and spliced to accommodate the memes, it took a lot of practice, patience and choreography to capture.” 

WATCH / SHARE “BROKEN BABY” HERE

MORE ABOUT YAWN + WISH I COULD’VE
Primarily produced by Jo Hirabayashi (Jo Passed), wish i could’ve is a record about getting older, about losing track of dreams, and being met with feelings of futility and failure. It’s a record about wanting more but not getting it, about loving and losing people, how we move forward, how some feelings never leave us, and how more often than not in life there is no tidy resolution. “I like to write songs that pin down all the feelings that are left floating around, the ones that, even years later, we can’t really make sense of,” McDougall writes. And while many of the songs touch on heavier subject matters, there is still room for lightness and humour in her work. 

WATCH / SHARE “HELP MYSELF” HERE

LISTEN / SHARE “COLOURED LIGHTS” HERE

wish i could’ve is a record that was made to make you simultaneously laugh, cry, sway and dance and it holds a universality that reaches out and holds the listener’s hand. Amongst this panorama of emotion is McDougall’s distinct voice, laid out across Yawn’s spectrum of melodies as the melancholic heart of the project. With cues from Beach House, Haim, Mitski and Caroline Polacheck, Yawn’s sound and vision will linger with you like fog on a spring morning, lifting with the heat of the sun to reveal the buds finally opening.

BUY / STREAM WISH I COULD’VE HERE

TOUR DATES
Jun 18 - Cumberland, BC - The Green Room
Jun 19 - Nanaimo, BC - The Vault
Jun 21 -  Vancouver, BC - Green Auto
Jun 27 - Wells, BC - Artswells

DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

WISH I COULD’VE TRACKLIST
01 help myself
02 broken baby
03 coloured light
04 wish i could’ve
05 you & i
06 let it all go
07 i deserve better
08 wading in the water
09 back in my head
10 world is burning
11 wasting time
12 take your time

YAWN ONLINE
WEBSITE
INSTAGRAM
BANDCAMP

CHXMERAS’ NEW EP OUT TODAY, SHARE NEW VIDEO

EXPERIMENTAL ELECTRONIC DUO CHXMERAS NEW EP, SECOND SIGHT, AVAILABLE EVERYWHERE TODAY

CANADIAN TOUR DATES CONTINUE JUNE 17

WATCH / SHARE “SECOND SIGHT” HERE

BUY / STREAM SECOND SIGHT EP HERE

Photo Credit : T. Ayalik // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Out today, CHXMERAS new EP, Second Sight is about “standing face-to-face with the wild, furious, anything goes, free-for-all, freefall present moment that we’re all living through.” CHXMERAS are a transatlantic collaboration between UK/Canadian musician Paul Finlay from the North East of England and Vancouver-based nêhiyaw/Denesuline musician Jarrett Martineau from Treaty 6 territory. Together, they weave immersive soundscapes with angular dub, experimental techno, mutating noise, and bit-crushed beats into a genre-blending, otherworldly experience. “When we set out to make this record, we didn’t know where we would end up, but we knew that we wanted it to sound and feel like the chaos and anxieties that are swirling all around us.”

To celebrate the EP’s release, they are sharing the new video for “Second Sight” which was “the first song we wrote for the album and it embodies the energy and relentlessness of the entire record,” says the band. “From the opening syncopated kick drums to the swarming synths, and rubbery bass stabs, it's a fast-moving, elastic track that bounces from dissonance to harmony, from staccato sounds to four on the floor techno. But it's also a turning point in the story. It's somehow one of the optimistic things we've made. It channels a precognitive sense that you might just survive the storm...the feeling that, even as you're hurtling through the fallout, and don't know where you're going, that you might just make it. The song holds onto the idea that even somewhere down the dystopian fury road of our burning world, you might just get to the other side. And ‘Second Sight’ holds onto that glimmer and premonition of another world that's worth fighting to try and reach.”

WATCH / SHARE “SECOND SIGHT” HERE

MORE ABOUT CHXMERAS
CHXMERAS released their debut album, Terminal City, in 2024 on Virtua94 Records. Hailed by RANGE Magazine as “a multilayered cinematic masterpiece", the album charts a sonic passage through the echoes and ruins of late-stage capitalism, environmental degradation, and urban decay. Using modular synths, drum machines, live efx, field recordings, film samples and live improvisation, CHXMERAS take listeners into a hallucinatory landscape where fractal paths, lost futures, and the disorienting present collide. 


WATCH / SHARE “MAELSTROM” HERE
WATCH / SHARE “SUBLIMATION” HERE


CANADIAN TOUR DATES
June 17 - Sled Island Festival - Calgary, AB
June 25 - Suoni Per Il Popolo Festival - Montreal, QC
June 27 - Vancouver International Jazz Festival - Vancouver, BC
July 27-28 - Shambhala Music Festival - Salmo, BC 

BUY / STREAM SECOND SIGHT EP HERE

DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

SECOND SIGHT TRACKLIST
01 Sublimation
02 Armour Up
03 Formline
04 Maelstrom
05 Second Sight

CHXMERAS ONLINE
INSTAGRAM
BANDCAMP
YOUTUBE
SOUNDCLOUD