WATCH / SHARE “COLD NIGHT” HERE
BUY / STREAM “COLD NIGHT” HERE
FIRST RUN OF UPCOMING TOUR DATES BEGINS FEBRUARY 24 IN TORONTO
BEGONIA RETURNS WITH NEW LP, POWDER BLUE, OUT FEBRUARY 24 ON BIRTHDAY CAKE RECORDS
PRE-SAVE POWDER BLUE HERE
PRE-ORDER POWDER BLUE HERE
“Begonia has one of Canada’s most extraordinary voices, and thankfully she uses it to obliterate misery from this world one live performance at a time.” - NOISEY
“You’ve been let in on pop’s best kept secret.” - CBC Music
“…a complex, powerhouse synth-soul album that hangs on one of Canada’s most extraordinary voices.” - Line of Best Fit
“An audacious adventure in modern soul” - Globe & Mail
“The woman has, you would say, presence to spare. When she opens her mouth to sing it’s like, “What just happened?” - Exclaim!
“[Begonia] conjures charming vintage soul and lays on the richly layered choruses. But she’s also enormously distinct in her crystalline delivery, which pairs perfectly with songs about starting down doubt and anxiety.” - NPR Music
Photo Credit : Calvin Lee Joseph // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Just last month, Begonia (Alexa Dirks) shared the news of her upcoming LP, Powder Blue, and released the single “Right Here”, which is already rising up the CBC Music Top 20 charts. Today, in addition to announcing the first run of upcoming tour dates beginning at Toronto’s Great Hall, the Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award nominated artist is sharing another single from the upcoming album, “Cold Night”.
“This song is the breakdown of a horrible life-changing relationship in three parts,” says Dirks. “Like...stages of grief I guess? Verse one is when you’re not ready to let go and just the thought of being ‘left behind’ makes you feel so desperate and detached, like you’re not even human anymore. Verse two is reflecting on the reality of the relationship itself and particular stories that come up only with time to reveal the truth. The last part of the song after the strings hit is all about accepting it for what it is and moving forward. Like sitting in your despair and sadness, but also knowing that it needed to be over and that you did the right thing by walking away.
“Deadmen (producers Matt Peters and Matt Shellenberg) really knocked it out of the park with their string arrangements on my upcoming album, and this song in particular is one of my favourites so I'm so glad to be releasing it as a single.”
WATCH / SHARE “COLD NIGHT” HERE
BUY / STREAM “COLD NIGHT” HERE
“Cold Night” Single Artwork // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
MORE ABOUT POWDER BLUE
On the album’s name, Dirks says, “Powder Blue is more of an emotion. It makes me think of my baby blanket, the colour of the virgin mary’s shawl at the church Christmas play, the airiness of clouds on a summer day, chlorine filled water in a hotel pool, Elvis in the 70s wearing an ill-fitting jumpsuit, the wallpaper in my room growing up, the collection of faded denim jackets in my basement.”
“The name of this album needed to be something that encompasses all of the feelings that these songs give me when they are put together,” Dirks continues. “When I listen to them as a unit, they send me back to the words, the colour. To me, this album holds a muted nostalgia, musings on childhood, the complexities of new love, self love, religion, virginity, and sexuality. There’s an indulgence in emotional depth and pain yet also an indulgence in love and a poppy lightness—two sides I’ve always tried to balance. I feel like I let my guard down even more with this record and decided to not hold back on either end.”
WATCH / SHARE “RIGHT HERE” HERE
BUY / STREAM “RIGHT HERE” HERE
MORE ABOUT BEGONIA
As Begonia, Alexa Dirks is bold, brazen with her florid, surprising pop that is tempered with sensitivity and wisdom. In her music, Begonia leans hard into a sense of arrival. Whether it’s learning to come into her own or processing a brutal heartbreak, Dirks’ intimate lyrics and audacious sound allows for her audience to relate to the messiness of life with an honesty that is refreshing.
Her debut LP, Fear, was nominated for a JUNO Award for Adult Alternative Album Of The Year and was longlisted for The Polaris Music Prize. It was one of Exclaim!’s Most Underrated Albums of the Year, made end of the year lists from CBC Music and Dominionated, and saw both “Beats” and “Hanging On A Line” named as CBC Music Top 20 Fan Favourites of the year. Fear also spent 10 straight weeks as the #1 album in Canada on Earshot’s Top 50 chart.
Fear was written and co-produced with a familiar team of Matt Schellenberg (Royal Canoe) and Matt Peters (Royal Canoe) along with Marcus Paquin (The National, The Weather Station, Julia Jacklin).
Dirks' first solo EP, Lady in Mind, was well-received, being listed on NPR’s 10 Artists You Need To Know in 2017 and single “Juniper” reached #1 on the CBC Radio 2 Top 20. Noisey wrote that, “Begonia has one of Canada’s most extraordinary voices, and thankfully she uses it to obliterate the misery from this world one live performance at a time.” NPR wrote that Begonia is “the place where synth-pop meets old soul and scrappy meets sexy."
PRE-SAVE POWDER BLUE HERE
PRE-ORDER POWDER BLUE HERE
TOUR DATES
Feb 24 - Toronto, ON @ The Great Hall
May 10 - Los Angeles, CA @ Hotel Café
May 18 - Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Lounge
May 19 - Seattle, WA @ Sunset Tavern
POWDER BLUE TRACKLIST
01 Chasing Every Sunrise
02 Heaven
03 Married By Elvis
04 Right Here
05 I’m Not Dying
06 Marigold
07 Butterfly
08 Cold Night
09 Crying
10 Bleeding Heart
11 The Only One
12 NYE2013