PHARIS & JASON ROMERO SHARE NEW SINGLE, “LOST LULA REDUX”

JUNO AWARD WINNING DUO PHARIS AND JASON ROMERO RETURN WITH A NEW TAKE ON AN OLD FAVOURITE IN “LOST LULA REDUX”

LISTEN / SHARE “LOST LULA REDUX” HERE
BUY / STREAM “LOST LULA REDUX” HERE

DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Pharis & Jason Romero’s music is a songwriter’s deep exhale, replete with stories, love, and nostalgia. With Pharis’ love of storytelling as a base for the duo’s artistic connection, their songs are lush and saturated with their lives: incidental touring, raising two kids, making banjos, and playing this music because they must. 

The songs are created as much from ideas - from being on the tops of mountains and phone calls with aging loved ones to insomnia, meditation and family feuds - as they are from the joy of playing and recording with a stellar band: fiddle, bass, piano, and percussion. 

Today, they return with “Lost Lula Redux”, a song that is more than just a banjo tune; it’s a melody that has traveled far beyond its origins. This is a new approach to their track “Lost Lula” which was first released in 2013 on their sophomore album Long Gone Out West Blues.  The tune has since found its way into the repertoires of banjo players around the world.

LISTEN / SHARE “LOST LULA REDUX” HERE
BUY / STREAM “LOST LULA REDUX” HERE

Written by Jason Romero for a beloved yellow lab, “Lost Lula” carries an unlikely story. Lula was Jason’s companion before he and Pharis met. At one point she was quietly taken, flown to Vermont, and - through a series of fortunate moments and the kindness of strangers - miraculously found her way back to the newly married couple. Soon after, they moved to British Columbia, where Lula thrived in a forested landscape full of sticks to chase. When she later disappeared, weeks of searching yielded no answers. In the wake of that loss, Jason wrote “Lost Lula” as both an ode and a way to process his grief.

The tune began as a steel-strung clawhammer banjo piece and has evolved over more than a decade of performance. Pharis & Jason have played it on different banjos, in different tunings, and alongside many collaborators, while players across the banjo community have embraced the tune and made it their own.

Over the years, “Lost Lula” has quietly become part of our musical fabric - played in coffee shops, taught by teachers, and heard at weddings, funerals, graduations, and long journeys across the globe.

Now Pharis & Jason revisit the tune with “Lost Lula Redux”, recorded as they play it today. The melody remains the same, but the approach has shifted; Jason performs the piece fingerstyle on a deluxe nylon-strung banjo from the J. Romero Banjo's workshop, offering a fresh take on a modern banjo classic.

Photo Credit : Rick Magnell  // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

UPCOMING PERFORMANCES|
Apr 24 - Kelowna, BC - Kelowna Folk Roots
Apr 25 - Port Moody, BC - Inlet Music Series
Jun 22 - Port Townsend, WA - Voice Works 2026

PHARIS & JASON ONLINE
WEBSITE
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM
YOUTUBE

ABIGAIL LAPELL SHARES TITLE TRACK OF NEW ALBUM, FEATURING FRAZEY FORD

ABIGAIL LAPELL’S NEW ALBUM, SHADOW CHILD, ARRIVES MOTHER’S DAY WEEKEND, MAY 8, 2026 VIA OUTSIDE MUSIC 

WATCH / SHARE “SHADOW CHILD” FT. FRAZEY FORD HERE
BUY / STREAM “SHADOW CHILD” FT. FRAZEY FORD HERE

PRE-SAVE SHADOW CHILD HERE

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES BEGIN APRIL 10

TICKETS ON SALE HERE

DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Last month, Award-winning Toronto singer-songwriter Abigail Lapell unveiled her upcoming new album Shadow Child, an album about motherhood whose nine songs each represent a month of gestation. Today, Lapell is sharing the title track of her upcoming album, which features guest vocalist Frazey Ford and her already otherworldly vocals harmonizing with a theremin. The song’s simple, driving acoustic and baritone guitars underpin lyrics that explore the work of childbirth, both its joys and terrors.

“Shadow Child” arrives with a stop motion animation video that Lapell herself “made years ago, about a figure creating another figure out of clay,” she says. “It was shot in one ‘take’, all in camera, and filmed backwards – so that, when played in reverse, it shows the creature emerging from a formless blob.

“I recently found all my old super 8 films, and I thought this odd little black and white claymation might fit well with ‘Shadow Child’, a song about pregnancy and childbirth – creation and transformation.

“But when I actually tried pairing the two, it was crazy. The unedited ‘backwards’ visuals fit the song exactly perfectly – like down to the second. Complete with the final reveal of the figure’s shadow, and then my own hands in silhouette, returning it to a formless blob. I couldn’t believe it. Even the unintended strobe effect from my camera’s ‘shutter ghosting’; it kind of reminds me of the flickering of an ultrasound.

“So this video feels like a really wild collaboration with my much younger self. And a celebration of the oddness of “creation”, in both senses – as an artist and, now, as a mother."

WATCH / SHARE “SHADOW CHILD” FT. FRAZEY FORD HERE
BUY / STREAM “SHADOW CHILD” FT. FRAZEY FORD HERE

MORE ABOUT SHADOW CHILD
Every mother has a unique story. One thing is true for every mother, though: there’s no deadline quite like a pregnancy. Abigail Lapell was pregnant with her first child when she booked studio time on Vancouver Island to make an album about motherhood. The nine songs on Shadow Child, one for each month of gestation, had to be ready before then, and her return flight was booked on the last day she could safely fly in her third trimester. 

Working with producer Colin Stewart (Dan Mangan, Black Mountain), Lapell finished her songs in the studio and on rural walks beside the Pacific Ocean. She enlisted some of her favourite singers, all British Columbians, all mothers: Frazey Ford, Jill Barber, Pharis Romero. “They’re all people with unique, distinctive voices,” she says, “which is what I’m drawn to.”  

For Shadow Child, musically, Lapell was looking for a stark, acoustic sound, as opposed to 2024’s JUNO Award-nominated Anniversary (recorded in Niagara with Great Lake Swimmers’ Tony Dekker) and 2022’s acclaimed Stolen Time (recorded in Montreal with Howard Bilerman, featuring E Street Band saxophonist Jake Clemons).

Lapell’s road to motherhood was fraught, involving years of IVF and a 2023 miscarriage — that she experienced on stage while on tour. (She finished her set.) Her son was born in November 2024. The song cycle of Shadow Child covers joy and loss, using metaphors from Maritime tragedy, “little cannibals,” reproductive health, acquiring language, and lives altered by the arrival of a newborn. The title track refers to ultrasound imaging of “a liminal person that doesn’t quite exist yet,” says Lapell. “Their status is ontologically blurry.”

WATCH / SHARE “HAZEL” FT. JILL BARBER HERE
BUY / STREAM “HAZEL” FT. JILL BARBER HERE

ABIGAIL LAPELL ON TOUR
April 10 - Saint John, NB - Imperial Theatre
May 8 - Richards Landing, ON - Algoma Trad
May 14 - Saratoga Springs, NY - Caffe Lena
May 15 - Exeter, NH - Word Barn
May 16 - Cambridge, MA - Club Passim
May 17 - New York, NY - Cafe Wha?
May 22 - Toronto, ON - Hugh's Room
May 23 - Chelsea, ON - Motel Chelsea
May 24 - Ottawa, ON - Ottawa Tennis Club
August 7-9 - Red Rock ON - Live from the Rock Folk Festival

More Dates To Be Announced Soon

PRE-SAVE SHADOW CHILD HERE

DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

SHADOW CHILD TRACKLIST
01 Whistle Song (One In A Million)
02 Hazel ft. Jill Barber
03 Shadow Child ft. Frazey Ford
04 Mocking Bird ft. Dana Sipos
05 Talking To Myself
06 Little Cannibal
07 So Long ft. Pharis Romero
08 Mother Tongue
09 Sing A Rainbow

ABIGAIL LAPELL ONLINE
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK
BANDCAMP
YOUTUBE
SPOTIFY

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE SHARE NEW VIDEO FOR “HEY AMANDA” + ANNOUNCE MORE CANADIAN DATES FOR ‘ALL THE FEELINGS’ TOUR WITH METRIC & STARS

“ALL THE FEELINGS” NORTH AMERICAN SUMMER TOUR BEGINS JUNE 8 

NEW ALBUM, REMEMBER THE HUMANS, OUT MAY 8 VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

WATCH / SHARE “HEY AMANDA” (MUSIC VIDEO) HERE

BUY / STREAM “HEY AMANDA” HERE

PRE-SAVE REMEMBER THE HUMANS HERE

Photo Credit: Broken Social Scene, Kevin Drew (Visual)
+ Jordan Allen (Layout) // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

This summer, Broken Social Scene together with Metric and Stars are heading out on the “All The Feelings” tour, beginning June 8. Today, they’re announcing the addition of more Canadian tour dates to that run, including stops in Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. To celebrate, the band is sharing a music video for its most recent single “Hey Amanda”. Full tour dates can be found below, tickets are available here.

Remember The Humans, the new LP from Broken Social Scene, marks their first new studio album in nearly a decade reunites the Toronto collective with producer David Newfeld, who helmed their breakthrough You Forgot It in People (2002) and self-titled (2005) albums. Across the 12 tracks, the arrangements are dense and enveloping - a lattice of horns, guitars, voices, and electronics - yet melody always remains sovereign, refusing to be swallowed by the sheer sound. When the music drifts towards abstraction, a grounding bass line arrives to anchor the listener, reminding us always that there are human hands on the controls and that, however artful, this is still rock and roll.

WATCH / SHARE “HEY AMANDA” (MUSIC VIDEO) HERE
BUY / STREAM “HEY AMANDA” HERE

Broken Social Scene announced the album with lead-single “Not Around Anymore” and Rolling Stone said “if the first single is any indication, (the album is) going to deliver plenty of the woozy affirmation and shambolic joy that Broken Social Scene do better than anyone” with Consequence labeling the song a “groovy indie jam.”  

The band’s Kevin Drew recently launched Everything Is Broken, a new original series on SiriusXM’s The Verge. On the show, Drew welcomes artists, creatives, and cultural figures to reflect on the songs that have shaped their lives, soundtracked pivotal moments, and offered solace through hardship and triumph. The inaugural season launched with a conversation between Drew and Cillian Murphy, the two longtime friends discussing the role music has played throughout their careers and friendship. Everything Is Broken airs on channel 173 every Saturday at 7pm ET, with an encore airing Wednesdays at 7pm ET.

Remember the Humans was shaped by reunion and loss in equal measure. When Drew and Newfeld reconnected after nearly 20 years apart, one hangout became what they call "a hurricane of fun." During the recording, both lost their mothers - a shared grief that drew them closer. As Newfeld recalls, "our moms would have wanted us to do this, and get it right after 20 years of not working together."

As ever, Broken Social Scene operates less as a band than as a community and songs evolve by ceding control to whoever can best carry them forward in the moment. Drew may be the designated driver, but collaborators on Remember the Humans, including Hannah Georgas, Lisa Lobsinger, and Feist, step into the foreground throughout the record, shaping songs with a sense of collective authorship that has always defined the group’s ethos.

WATCH / SHARE “NOT AROUND ANYMORE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “NOT AROUND ANYMORE” HERE

The songs work because no one fully commands them. But this is where Newfeld matters most. As BSS’s Charles Spearin puts it, "his production suits the chaos of our songwriting so well...he's got a childlike energy that is really contagious, when you get a piece of music that he loves, Oh my God, he's bouncing like a little boy."

The same unruly energy that keeps a band young can also trap it in its own past. Yet on Remember the Humans, Broken Social Scene have evolved with a deep sense of intention. It is the sound of a band deepening rather than reinventing, exploring the emotional implications of forms they’ve spent twenty years shaping. "There's a different kind of honesty in this record," says Spearin, "we've had success, we've lost friends, we've lost parents, we're at this 'what happens next?' stage in life." Remember the Humans is adult music in the best sense: contradictory, wounded, expansive - hopeful in a way that feels earned rather than declared. And it is also, in its refusal of control and its embrace of the ungovernable, a testament to something increasingly rare: art that is not optimized, not streamlined, not strategic.

BSS’s own evolution mirrors something happening outside it. After years of oversaturation and noise, the culture itself seems to have looped back to a craving for the raw, the communal, and the unguarded. The conditions that made You Forgot It in People feel necessary in 2002 have, in altered form, returned in 2026. According to Drew, "in 2026, you're going to see a lot of resurgence of people going back to the roots of who they are, because things in their lifetime have gotten quite lost. I think we've let each other down, and I think it's art that always tries to prevail, and tries to get us back on track."

In a culture defined by abstraction and distance, Broken Social Scene have made a record that insists on the analog fact of human presence. It asks, gently, but insistently, that we remember each other, that we remember the human. 

PRE-SAVE REMEMBER THE HUMANS HERE

THE ‘ALL THE FEELINGS TOUR’ 2026 DATES:
Mon Jun 8 – Austin, TX – Moody Amphitheater
Tue Jun 9 – Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
Thu Jun 11 – Denver, CO – Fillmore Auditorium
Sat Jun 13 – Sandy, UT – Sandy Amphitheater
Tue Jun 16 – Los Angeles, CA – The Greek Theatre
Thu Jun 18 – Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre
Fri Jun 19 – San Diego, CA – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre
Sun Jun 21 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
Mon Jun 22 – San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
Wed Jun 24 – Bend, OR – Hayden Homes Amphitheater
Thu Jun 25 – Seattle, WA – Chateau Ste. Michelle - NEW DATE
Sun Jun 28 – Calgary, AB – South Alberta Jubilee Auditorium - NEW DATE
Mon Jun 29 – Edmonton, AB – Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium - NEW DATE
Fri Jul 24 – Chicago, IL – Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom
Sat Jul 25 – Detroit, MI – Fox Theatre
Mon Jul 27 – Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
Tue Jul 28 – Philadelphia, PA – The Met Philadelphia Presented by Highmark
Thu Jul 30 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
Fri Jul 31 – Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
Sat Aug 1 – Washington, DC – The Anthem
Mon Aug 3 – Atlanta, GA – Tabernacle
Tue Aug 4 – Nashville, TN – Ryman Auditorium
Fri Aug 7 – Toronto, ON – RBC Amphitheatre
Wed Sep 09 – Dublin, IE – 3 Olympia Theatre - NEW DATE
Fri Sep 11 – Glasgow, UK – O2 Academy Glasgow - NEW DATE
Sat Sep 12 – London, UK – O2 Academy Brixton - NEW DATE
Sun Sep 13 – Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy - NEW DATE
Tue Sep 15 – Paris, FR – Salle Pleyel - NEW DATE
Wed Sep 16 – Antwerp, BE – De Roma - NEW DATE
Thu Sep 17 – Utrecht, NL – TivoliVredenburg - NEW DATE
Sat Sep 19 – Berlin, DE – Columbiahalle - NEW DATE
Sat Oct 3 – London, ON – Canada Life Place - NEW DATE
Mon Oct 5 – Ottawa, ON – The Arena at TD Place - NEW DATE
Wed Oct 7 – Laval, QC – Place Bell - NEW DATE

DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

REMEMBER THE HUMANS TRACKLISTING
1. Not Around Anymore
2. Only The Good I Keep
3. Mission Accomplished (Kingfisher)
4. The Call
5. Relief
6. And I Think Of You
7. This Briefest Kiss
8. Life Within The Ground
9. Hey Amanda
10. Paying For Your Love
11. What Happens Now
12. Parking Lot Dreams

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE ONLINE
WEBSITE
INSTAGRAM
FACEBOOK