ALLISON RUSSELL ANNOUNCES THIRD STUDIO ALBUM, IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS

ALLISON RUSSELL’S THIRD STUDIO ALBUM, IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS, OUT JULY 10 FROM FANTASY RECORDS

PRE-SAVE IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS HERE

ANNOUNCES CANADIAN TOUR DATES FOR FALL
TOUR DATES WITH SARAH MCLACHLAN BEGIN JULY 1

ALBUM FEATURES NORAH JONES, BRITTNEY SPENCER, DEVON GILFILLIAN, SARA WATKINS, JOY OLADOKUN, KARA JACKSON, KASHUS CULPEPPER, DENITIA, JULIE WILLIAMS, RUBY AMANFU, KYSHONA, AHYA SIMONE, CHIBUEZE IHUOMA, AND MORE

WATCH / SHARE “COLD APRIL” HERE
FT. KARA JACKSON, DENITIA & EXPLORE! POP CHOIR

BUY / STREAM “COLD APRIL” HERE
FT. KARA JACKSON, DENITIA & EXPLORE! POP CHOIR

Photo Credit: Mason Poole // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Today, Allison Russell has announced her third studio album, In The Hour of Chaos. Once again produced by the GRAMMY Award winning team of Russell and Dim Star, the record arrives July 10, 2026 via Fantasy Records. To mark the occasion she has shared the single “Cold April” featuring her tourmate Kara Jackson, Denitia and Russell’s daughter Ida’s Explore! Pop Choir.

Allison Russell on “Cold April” :
“Things are rough. Things have been rough before.  Cold April is not laying out the grim facts of the moment.  Cold April asks if we can let the music itself restore and recharge us. The act of singing with my sisters, Kara Jackson and Denitia, is a balm for my soul, and a wind at my back to keep on. And the Explore! Pop Choir… Let them tell it: 
“Calling all birds from across the nation
yeah we got a brand new murmuration
we don’t have to fly in that 
old formation, no” 
Youth  - and Love - will be served!”

WATCH / SHARE “COLD APRIL” HERE
FT. KARA JACKSON, DENITIA & EXPLORE! POP CHOIR

BUY / STREAM “COLD APRIL” HERE
FT. KARA JACKSON, DENITIA & EXPLORE! POP CHOIR

MORE ABOUT IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS
Allison Russell’s In the Hour of Chaos is a fervent plea for connection in this time of alienation, isolation and dread. These are songs meant to reverse the tides that pull us farther and farther apart, even from ones we love the most.This is a record meant to make you feel GOOD, and, in these times, feeling good is a radical act. It’s only fitting then, that Russell leaned into her vibrant and ever expanding community of artists and friends to create a collaborative song suite that goes far beyond a succession of features. 

The songs unfold like a series of one act plays with Allison, who joins with an artist(s) from her rainbow diaspora, many from her adopted home in Nashville. Tactile, vulnerable, raw, soothing, sensual, sad – each is a  little capsule of humans being fully human and fully present. From the quiet reckoning of “No Springtime” with Joy Oladokun and Julie Williams, to the  joy- with-a-splash-of-sadness that is “Cold April”, where Kara Jackson, Denitia, and Russell’s daughter Ida’s Explore! Pop Choir add intergenerational depth, Allison Russell curates collaborators with care: Brittney Spencer’s earthy soul on “Black Lavender”, Norah Jones’ intimate ease on “Really Real”, Ruby Amanfu’s vulnerable grace on “Just Like Saturday”, – all serve as portals into our flawed, fantastic, interconnected lives.

Elsewhere, Devon Gilfillian brings effortless warmth to “Love is a Golden Lion”, Kashus Culpepper lends grit and swagger to “Searchlight”, Chibueze Ihuoma adds an otherworldly tenderness to “Two Stars”, and Ahya Simone’s incomparable harp closes the circle with the haunting “Good Omens”. Across these songs, Russell holds the center effortlessly, while illuminating the voices of her chosen family. She turns these throughlines into golden thread, strengthening as she weaves, the only protection she knows against the chaos of this hour.

 BUY / STREAM “NO SPRINGTIME” FT. JOY OLADOKUN & JULIE WILLIAMS HERE
WATCH / SHARE “NO SPRINGTIME” FT. JOY OLADOKUN & JULIE WILLIAMS HERE

Music has healed human beings for as long as we have been singing. But what does it mean when an artist deliberately turns her instrument into medicinal enactment? What is discovered when joy, fulfillment, and wonder are the guiding lights of an album, when one does not repair by accident—but by deliberate artistry? 

This is indeed rare, even daring, in a culture that sees artistic methods of healing and repair as merely “service” or “social work,” that believes “real” art, serious “grown-up” art, the art lauded by institutions and museums, shouldn’t concern itself with something so minor and domestic as “feeling better.” But this revisionist view of music goes against its historic reality: that music, made to heal, heals. This is true of our most ancient hymns and rhythms and chants. Why should this change now? 

In this new album by Allison Russell, one of the greatest lyric storytellers of our time, redemption does not come from the voice alone—it comes through the act of controlling and re-casting our stories so that they might be embodied, shared, and celebrated by others. Not unlike the R&B, Blues, and Folk/Country traditions that she honors and expands, her songs are sonic accompaniment to life itself. This is music to live, fight, and fuck to. Songs you put on after work because you need to be beside somebody in an empty room. Songs to which you could drive to the edge of the county just to return to whatever keeps you faithful—or to floor it across state lines and start a Tracy-Chapman-fast-car new life and get “outta here.” But more importantly, these are songs you send to a friend and say, simply, call me after you hear this. An impulse that comes from the ancient desire to use music as a conductor of love between two people. Here’s what I wanted to say but couldn’t find the words for. And even if what we want to say are a litany of the most painful things, that the song makes it shareable, makes it known, like a cigarette passed from one to another in the dark, is a triumph. 

PRE-SAVE IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS HERE

MORE ABOUT ALLISON RUSSELL
Russell just completed her second run on Broadway as Persephone in the 8x Tony Award winning musical Hadestown. She took over the role in November 2024 initially, after spending much of that year opening for Hozier on his Unreal Unearth Tour supporting his arena run on all US dates and throughout Europe. She made her Billboard Hot 100 debut thanks to their duet “Wildflower & Barley”. She also co-wrote “Human Mind” with Hozier for Mavis Staples.

Russell recently took the stage at the JUNO Awards to pay tribute to fellow Canadian, Joni Mitchell. The performance was a duet between her and Sarah McLachan who she will tour with throughout the summer. Dates kick off on July 1st in Franklin, TN. A full list of tour dates is below. 

WATCH ALLISON RUSSELL & SARAH MCLACHLAN AT THE 2026 JUNO AWARDS

The accolades for Russell have been immense. Last year she was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize and named Billboard Women In Music Canada’s “Breakthrough Artist of the Year”. She has had 8 GRAMMY Award nominations and one win, earned three 2022 Americana Award nominations and a win for Album of the Year with subsequent nominations in 2023 and 2024, two International Folk Music Award wins, a 2022 JUNO nomination for ‘Songwriter of the Year,’ and her first-ever JUNO Award win for Contemporary Roots Album of the Year. Russell won three Canadian Folk Music Awards, two UK Americana Music Awards, and more. 

Russell’s acclaimed solo debut, Outside Child (2021), was followed by The Returner (2023), released via Concord/Fantasy. Prior to her solo work, she co-founded and toured internationally with Po’Girl, Birds of Chicago, and Our Native Daughters, and remains an active collaborator with OND and a member of Joni Mitchell’s Joni Jam.

Offstage, Russell is a powerful advocate and organizer, curating the historic Once and Future Sounds set at Newport Folk Festival and co-founding Love Rising, which has raised over $550,000 in support of LGBTQIA+ communities.

Her forthcoming memoir will be published by LittleBrown.

TOUR DATES

* supporting Sarah McLachlan 

Jul 1 – FirstBank Amphitheater – Franklin, TN*
Jul 3 – Synovus Bank Amphitheater at Chastain Park – Atlanta, GA*
Jul 7 – TD Pavilion at The Mann – Philadelphia, PA*
Jul 8 – Hartford HealthCare Amphitheater – Bridgeport, CT*
Jul 10 – Leader Bank Pavilion – Boston, MA*
Jul 11 – Forest Hills Stadium – Forest Hills, NY*
Jul 12 – BankNH Pavilion – Gilford, NH*
Jul 14 – Artpark Mainstage Theater – Lewiston, NY*
Jul 15 – Michigan Lottery Amphitheatre at Freedom Hill – Sterling Heights, MI*
Jul 17 – Acrisure Amphitheater – Grand Rapids, MI*
Jul 18 – Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island – Chicago, IL*
Jul 19 – Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park – Indianapolis, IN*|
Jul 21 – PNC Pavilion – Cincinnati, OH*
Jul 23 – Saint Louis Music Park – Maryland Heights, MO*
Jul 24 – Starlight Theatre – Kansas City, MO*
Jul 26 – The Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory – Irving, TX*
Jul 30 – Utah First Credit Union Amphitheatre – West Valley City, UT*
Aug 1 – Toyota Pavilion at Concord – Concord, CA*
Aug 2 – The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park – San Diego, CA*
Aug 4 – Greek Theatre – Los Angeles, CA*
Aug 5 – Greek Theatre – Los Angeles, CA*
Aug 7 – Hayden Homes Amphitheater – Bend, OR*
Aug 8 – Chateau Ste Michelle Winery – Woodinville, WA*
Aug 9 – Chateau Ste Michelle Winery – Woodinville, WA*|
Oct 15 – The Orange Peel – Asheville, NC
Oct 22 – Allied Music Centre - Massey Hall – Toronto, ON
Oct 23 – Theatre Beanfield – Montreal, QC
Oct 24 – Imperial Bell – Quebec City, QC
Oct 25 – National Arts Centre - Southam Hall – Ottawa, ON 
Oct 27 – Higher Ground The Ballroom – South Burlington, VT
Nov 1 – First Avenue – Minneapolis, MN
Nov 3 – Burton Cummings Theatre – Winnipeg, MB
Nov 5 – Winspear Centre – Edmonton, AB
Nov 6 – Grey Eagle Resort & Casino Event Centre – Calgary, AB
Nov 9 – University of British Columbia Vancouver Chan Centre – Vancouver, BC

ALBUM ART // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

IN THE HOUR OF CHAOS TRACKLIST
1. Rainbows
2. No Springtime ft Joy Oladokun & Julie Williams
3. Cold April ft Kara Jackson, Denitia & Explore! Pop Choir
4. Black Lavender ft Brittney Spencer
5. Really Real ft Norah Jones
6. Just Like Saturday ft Ruby Amanfu
7. Chaos Theory ft Kyshona & Sara Watkins
8. Love is a Golden Lion ft Devon Gilfillian
9. Searchlight ft Kashus Culpepper
10. Two Stars ft Chibueze Ihuoma
11. Good Omens ft Ahya Simone

ALLISON RUSSELL ONLINE:
WEBSITE
FACEBOOK
INSTAGRAM
YOUTUBE  

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE RELEASE NEW ALBUM, REMEMBER THE HUMANS

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE RELEASE NEW ALBUM REMEMBER THE HUMANS
VIA ARTS & CRAFTS

BUY / STREAM REMEMBER THE HUMANS HERE

WATCH / SHARE “ONLY THE GOOD I KEEP” FEATURING HANNAH GEORGAS HERE
BUY / STREAM “ONLY THE GOOD I KEEP” FEATURING HANNAH GEORGAS HERE

“ALL THE FEELINGS” WORLD-WIDE TOUR WITH METRIC & STARS KICKS OFF JUNE 8

“Anthems for Everyone: Broken Social Scene Are Chasing That Teenage Feeling” -
Exclaim!, Cover Story

"They still brim with the kind of heart-bruising magic that seems impossible to
replicate again."   Rolling Stone

“Remember the Humans is a bonus lap from one of Canada’s most venerated institutions, even all these years later." Pitchfork The 64 Most Anticipated Albums of Spring 2026

“The Canadian indie-rock collective known for its fluid membership releases its first studio
LP in almost a decade, which considers the big changes its members have
experienced as they matured both as individuals and as artists." The Wall Street Journal 

"The band sounds delighted to renew their foundations; Humans brims with hooks, voices, and instruments spilling over one another in the glorious choruses of “Hey Amanda” and “Relief.”” New York Magazine 

"’The Call’ is the title of this one. I love the performance. I love the bigness. I love the dynamics of this track. And I love the positive vibes emanating off of it as well." The Needle Drop

""The magic of Broken Social Scene is the same as it ever was…there's a sense of communal joy in their blurrily maximalist indie rock, and you can hear it come through clearly on some of their best songs. I hear it on ‘The Call’”  Stereogum on "The Call"

"a lovely interplay of guitar, horns, and strings" Flood on "Hey Amanda"

"('Hey Amanda') leans fully into Broken Social Scene’s signature indie-weirdo charm"  Consequence 

Photo by Norman Wong / Post Production by Jimmy Limit // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Broken Social Scene return with their new album, Remember The Humans, out today via Arts & Crafts. The LP, their first in nearly a decade, is a return to family, reuniting Broken Social Scene with David Newfeld, producer of the seminal You Forgot It In People and Broken Social Scene. It is the sound of a band deepening rather than reinventing, exploring the emotional implications of forms they have spent over 20 years shaping. In a culture defined by abstraction and distance, BSS have made a record that insists that we remember each other, that we remember the human. 

With the release the band also shares the focus track “Only The Good I Keep” which captures Broken Social Scene’s collaborative spirit at its core, with Hannah Georgas stepping forward to lead the track with striking clarity and control. In true BSS fashion, Kevin Drew ultimately ceded his own vocals, recognizing the song had fully taken shape in her hands. Georgas says: 

“As for the earlier process of the song I was involved in, Kevin invited me to hang out at the studio with him and Dave Neufeld one afternoon and listen to some demos they’d been working on. He sent me home with a few of the tracks we heard that day, and one in particular really stuck with me. It had this simple but captivating drum and piano part.I started writing lyrics and melodies over it. I wanted to write about what my teenage years felt like..what it sounded like, what it looked like, what it felt like. It kinda became a reflection on the hardships I faced growing up, as well as the things that helped me make it through adolescence.”

“Only The Good I Keep” arrives with a video co-directed by Drew and Jordan Allen.

WATCH / SHARE “ONLY THE GOOD I KEEP” HERE
BUY / STREAM “ONLY THE GOOD I KEEP” HERE

The band teased the album with "Not Around Anymore", “Hey Amanda,” and “The Call” to world-wide critical acclaim. Rolling Stone caught up with them for a recent feature and … insert additional release day press hits. 

Next month the band will embark on the “All The Feelings Tour” with Metric, joined by support from Stars. The run kicks off June 8 and spans North America, Europe, and the UK including stops in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Laval, and London with a slot in Halifax at the Halifax Jazz Festival on July 11. In addition Broken Social Scene are confirmed to play as part of FIFA’s Fan Festival in Vancouver on June 26. All dates are listed below and tickets are available here. 

Download tour admat here

MORE ABOUT BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE & REMEMBER THE HUMANS
For many bands, there are long stretches when nothing seems to happen, at least from the outside. Years pass, the culture shifts, and the audience waits for a signal, unsure whether the silence marks exhaustion, reinvention, or simply life happening offstage. Broken Social Scene has always maintained a distinct release cadence: neither a band of relentless abundance (like the Beatles or Stones in their heyday), nor of contemporary monastic scarcity (like My Bloody Valentine or D'Angelo). They surface when the conditions are right, and fall quiet when they aren't. Yet their silence never feels like absence - it feels like building pressure, as if the next surge of sound is assembling itself offstage, gathering mass, waiting for the right moment to break. 2026 is such a moment. 

Thus, their new album, Remember the Humans, is truly a release. And, the timing feels uncannily right. We live in an era that is overstimulated, and yet simultaneously hollowed out; deeply connected, but marked by a profound sense of dislocation. The album’s title is like a quiet alarm: a reminder not to forget the fragile, analog beings at the center of all the noise. 

BSS's new songs enact this tension rather than simply describing it. Their 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 “NOT AROUND ANYMORE” HERE

This sensibility crystallizes on “Not Around Anymore,” the overture to an album about the forward pull of time, nostalgia’s seductions, and above all, art’s capacity to guide us through. It awakens with a deliberate, indelible groove, as frontman Kevin Drew incants about the disappearance of possibility in a world where "it's all gone away." But the nostalgia hinted at by the lyrics is gently resisted by the music: by invoking a past that has vanished, the song unexpectedly floods the present with a glow that rivals the very greatness being lamented. With a sound familiar and new, Broken Social Scene refutes the passage of time and emphasizes the present moment. 

To achieve this sound, the band returned to the producer who first helped them discover it. David Newfeld - who helmed their breakthrough You Forgot It in People (2002) and its gargantuan follow-up Broken Social Scene (2005) - was widely emulated in the years that followed, but as Kevin Drew points out, he “never really got his day,” his influence absorbed into an entire generation of indie production, but without his name attached. Their collaboration ended awkwardly, unresolved: "the ending never really felt right." Almost two decades later, when Drew happened to move nearby, they reconnected. One hangout became a “hurricane of fun,” the kind of energy that demanded musical expression. During the making of the record, both Drew and Newfeld lost their mothers, a shared grief that drew them closer. Newfeld recalls, “our moms would have wanted us to do this, and get it right after 20 years of not working together.” That bond, equal parts joy and loss, impressed itself on the music that would evolve into Remember the Humans.

LISTEN / SHARE “HEY AMANDA” HERE

Making that evolution happen was no small feat. BSS is less of a band than a community, constructed more of intricate moving parts - each with their own careers, families, and musical identities - than typical band members. When the group reconvenes, those parallel lives don’t dissolve, they collide in what Drew calls "an enjoyable PTSD." Each member brings back sounds, instincts, and habits accumulated elsewhere. 

BSS has always been a creative engine that resists control. The trick is learning how to steer it just enough. Each song finds its shape by handing the wheel to whoever can hold it at that moment. Drew is the designated driver, but on half the tracks, he is content to ride shotgun. Hannah Georgas, who, in true BSS fashion, evolved from opening act to onstage collaborator, drives “Only the Good I Keep” with such authority that Drew set aside the vocals he wrote for the track, recognizing that the song now belonged to her. Lisa Lobsinger - who toured and recorded with the band between 2005-11, filling the formidable shoes of Feist, Emily Haines, and Amy Millan - leads “Relief,” a song that came to her in meditation as a vivid memory of a BSS track that no one had ever written, an impossible recollection that the band then made real. Feist resurrects Hug of Thunder (2017) outtake “What Happens Now” as an elegy for the dusk of our "aging age," yet her voice and the plaintive arrangement - just as they did on “Not Around Anymore” - serenely resist the despair, illuminating the fragile continuities that remain: "I'm still in love with life, our lifetimes melt together." 

Again, 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." 

WATCH / SHARE “THE CALL” HERE

Of course, refusing to grow up has its dangers. The same unruly energy that keeps a band young can also trap it in its own past. Yet on Remember the Humans, it feels like BSS belong to that rare lineage, like Duluth slowcore legends Low, whose original concept was rich enough to evolve, and whose evolution has been handled with uncommon care. It is the sound of a band deepening rather than reinventing, exploring the emotional implications of forms they’ve spent more than 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. 

The band’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.

BUY / STREAM REMEMBER THE HUMANS HERE

BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE TOUR DATES 
6/8 – Moody Amphitheater – Austin, TX
6/9 – South Side Ballroom – Dallas, TX
6/11 – Fillmore Auditorium – Denver, CO
6/13 – Sandy Amphitheater – Sandy, UT
6/16 – The Greek Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
6/17 – Arizona Financial Theatre – Phoenix, AZ
6/19 – Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre – San Diego, CA
6/21 – The Masonic – San Francisco, CA – SOLD OUT
6/22 - The Masonic - San Francisco, CA
6/24 – Hayden Homes Amphitheater – Bend, OR
6/25 -- Chateau Ste. Michelle -- Woodinville, WA 
6/26 - Hasting’s Park - Vancouver, BC (FIFA fan festival) *
6/28 -- South Alberta Jubilee Auditorium -- Calgary, AB - SOLD-OUT
6/29 -- Northern Alberta Jubilee Auditorium -- Edmonton, AB - SOLD-OUT
7/11 - Halifax Jazz Festival - Halifax, NS *
7/24 – Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom – Chicago, IL
7/25 – Fox Theatre – Detroit, MI
7/27 – MGM Music Hall at Fenway – Boston, MA
7/28 – The Met – Philadelphia, PA
7/30 – Brooklyn Paramount – Brooklyn, NY – SOLD OUT
7/31 - Brooklyn Paramount - Brooklyn, NY - SOLD-OUT
8/1 – The Anthem – Washington, DC
8/3 – Tabernacle – Atlanta, GA - LOW TICKET WARNING
8/4 – Ryman Auditorium – Nashville, TN - SOLD-OUT
8/7 – RBC Amphitheatre – Toronto, ON - SOLD-OUT
9/9 -- 3 Olympia Theatre -- Dublin, IE
9/11 -- O2 Academy Glasgow -- Glasgow, UK
9/12 -- O2 Academy Brixton -- London, UK
9/13 -- Manchester Academy -- Manchester, UK
9/15 -- Salle Pleyel -- Paris, FR
9/16 -- De Roma -- Antwerp, BE
9/17 -- TivoliVredenburg -- Utrecht, NL
9/19 -- Columbiahalle -- Berlin, DE
10/3 -- Canada Life Place -- London, ON
10/5 -- The Arena at TD Place -- Ottawa, ON
10/7 -- Place Bell -- Laval, QC

*non “All The Feelings” tour 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

STATUS / NON-STATUS SHARE NEW VIDEO FOR “BASKET WEAVING”

WATCH / SHARE “BASKET WEAVING” HERE

STATUS/NON-STATUS NEW ALBUM, BIG CHANGES, OUT NOW
VIA YOU’VE CHANGED RECORDS

BUY / STREAM BIG CHANGES HERE

“Hope and hopelessness teeter side by side, big drums and jingle dresses ring out beneath driving guitars, and questions about land, belonging, and survival linger long after the last lyric fades.” - Atwood Magazine 

“In a moment defined by fragmentation, Status/Non-Status offers something sturdier: music as community, and community as survival.” - RANGE Magazine, Frequency Forecast 2026  

“Adam Sturgeon and co. are back with an album centred on family.  …a record that’s raw and urgent.” - CBC Music, Albums We Can’t Wait To Hear in 2026

“We have the utmost faith in Anishihaabe songwriter Adam Sturgeon and co. to mine the trials and tribulations of navigating life's Big Changes” - Exclaim!, 2026 Anticipated Albums

Photo Credit:  Natasha Roberts // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES

Earlier this year, Status/Non-Status released their new album, Big Changes, a record about survival, but also about making connections in order to endure. Led by Anishinaabe musician and artist Adam Sturgeon, the record is the big noise we make together when the world feels like it’s falling apart, and the harmony that comes when we keep time with one another. At its core, Big Changes is an act of community-building. Though its songs focus on reckoning, reflection, and resistance, the album derives its strength from the people who contributed to its creation.

Today, the band shares the new video for "Basket Weaving", a song from Big Changes that is a collaborative piece with Odawa poet and artist Colleen (Coco) Collins. “Together we explore the ancestral experience of reconnection,” the band says. “In this instance, to a specific teaching and blood memory; that of the traditional basket weaving process - imagining ourselves on the river bed watching our Ancestors wade into the river to select the right piece of Ash to weave. Here, we question how far we have come as a society and look back in yearning and learning - as we also re-imagine our people gliding through history in Wiigwaas Jimnaan - (Anishinaabe word for Birchbark Canoe).”

WATCH / SHARE “BASKET WEAVING” HERE
BUY / STREAM BIG CHANGES HERE

MORE ABOUT BIG CHANGES (by Jim Di Gioia)
Over the years, Adam Sturgeon has undergone a metamorphosis, shedding old monikers and reclaiming heritage. In 2021, the collective formerly known as WHOOP-Szo became Status/Non-Status as part of Sturgeon’s ongoing exploration of the complex roots of his family history. Together with Zoon’s Daniel Monkman (who makes a guest appearance on Big Changes), Sturgeon introduced the world to OMBIIGIZI in 2022 via their Polaris Music Prize shortlisted record Sewn Back Together. Regardless of which project Sturgeon is working on, though, the one thing that doesn’t change is how he treats it: like family, protecting it at all costs. Every reinvention, every reckoning, every return leads back to the same role: provider, protector, father.

Alongside Sturgeon, there is a host of both long-time and new collaborators and friends—like Eric Lourenco, Jessica O’Neil, and Kirsten Kurvink Palm—as well as an extended circle of artists (including Steven Lourenco and Sunnsetter’s Andrew MacLeod) expanding Status/Non-Status into an every growing collective of artists that embodies the push and pull that animates the album itself: the tension between consistency and change and living in solitude and solidarity. 

Big Changes comes from living through what Sturgeon describes as “a war on people and their ways of being” while engaging in the everyday domesticity of dropping the kids off at daycare, heading into work, doing chores around the house, and figuring out how to survive “what is beginning to feel like a real apocalypse.” Inspired by his in-the-moment work with OMBIIGIZI, and with over 40 rough song ideas on hand, Sturgeon recruited Dean Nelson (Beck, Thurston Moore, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks) and Matthew Wiewel (of Deadpan Studios and engineer of Status/Non-Status’ previous album, Surely Travel) to build a home studio in the old church he lives in with his family in London, Ontario. Everything on Big Changes “Is centralized around our Monday morning recording sessions,” he says, “and this routine of caring for my young family in a disintegrating and tough city.”

WATCH / SHARE “AT ALL” HERE

For Sturgeon, Big Changes also reflects his lifelong dialogue with duality, a dichotomy “...felt through the contrast of being a mixed person,” who sees “racism perpetuated against people more visible than myself, while also not feeling like I’m Indian enough.” The record tussles with that uneasy and impossible balance of simultaneously walking in two worlds with conflicting values. It’s less a statement of intent than a lived reflection, one that acknowledges tension without resolving it. “I don’t feel conflicted about where I stand, but I’m not sure I’m always seen,” Sturgeon says, adding that, “[on Sewn Back Together, OMBIIGIZI] found balance in the dichotomy of being damaged and using it as a tool to move forward. Big Changes, however, is foreboding and inquisitive about what is to come.”

The song “Big Changes” brings these big ideas and concepts down to street level, reflecting the daily realities of life just outside Sturgeon’s own front door. “This song is about my hood, where I live and raise my family and what I see when I walk out the door,” he says, describing a neighbourhood “mired by gaps in the system” and burdened by housing crises, addiction, and lateral violence. Caught in the crossfire between bureaucratic inaction and a community’s will to survive, “Big Changes” expresses how people are forced into change simply to keep going, whether that change leads somewhere better or somewhere harder doesn’t really matter. What matters is endurance, adaptation, and the resilience to find ways to live with what’s left.

Despite its title, one thing that Big Changes doesn’t mess with is the music. Status/Non-Status hold fast to their intuitive and fluid style, their musicianship grounded in connection, familiarity, and an overarching trust in the power of their glorious noise. If anything, Status/Non-Status is more refined on Big Changes, summoning a sound that’s deliberate while retaining the untamed energy that first inspired them. Crunching guitars clock the daily grind of the nine-to-five on opening track “At All”, while bursts of ’90s indie-rock energy collide with sugar-coated power pop melodies on “Peace Bomb”. Ominous shades of gothic blues hang in the air on the title track, while the yin and yang of male and female harmonies (supplied by Broken Social Scene’s Kevin Drew and Rachel McLean) on “Blown Again” temper abrasion with warmth. On “Basket Weaving”, contemplative acoustics and ambient synth textures intertwine with anthemic rock flourishes in an exploration of “ancestral experience of reconnection.” The influence of Canadian noise-rock pioneers Eric’s Trip runs like an undercurrent through Big Changes, especially in its community-minded spirit. That lineage comes full circle on the delicate lullaby ballad “Good Enough”, featuring Eric’s Trip Julie Doiron. “Working with Julie Doiron, my teenage hero and favourite bass player,” says Sturgeon, “is something I could only ever dream of. I don’t take accomplishing my dreams for granted,” he adds. “I am just so lucky Julie is such a giving and wonderful community member.”

Read the full album bio by Jim Di Gioia at https://www.killbeatmusic.com/statusnonstatus

PERFORMANCE DATES
May 13-16 - Great Escape - Brighton, UK

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