FROM NEW ALBUM WE WERE RADAR STATIONS
SET FOR RELEASE ON OCTOBER 13th
WATCH/SHARE VIDEO HERE
BC musician Zoe Guigueno's new single and video 'Benefit Of The Doubt' is out now on all digital streaming platforms. Watch video here.
'Benefit Of The Doubt’ is the 2nd single from Zoe's new album We Were Radar Stations, which will be released on October 13th. The origin story for this folky jazz-influenced track is an interesting one; beginning with someone else's words.
"The lyrics of this song came to me as a letter from a penpal–a woman I had met at a music camp," says Zoe. "Though the content of her initial correspondence had been relatively light, this one was the result of a rapid eye therapy session; a candid outpouring of her life story. I remember my jaw dropping as I read it; needing to process, I put the letter on my piano and sang her words aloud."
Accompanying the single release is a music video directed by Ali Calladine. The video portrays the relationship between artist and muse–in this case, Zoe and the penpal.
Zoe explains: "Filmed at Fiddlehead Studio on Mayne Island–the same place the album was recorded–the video illustrates the stages of the song’s creation, from the initial spark of inspiration, through the artist’s emotional processing, to the final performance of the complete song."
The opening lines of Zoe Guigueno’s forthcoming album, We Were Radar Stations, set the tone for the entire record. The words–You gotta thing you gotta tell / You gotta time you gotta tell by–establish the atmosphere of the next 33 minutes: here, in this room, we can tell our stories and be listened to without judgement. We have in attendance a first-responder suffering from complex PTSD. An orphaned farm girl trapped in an abusive relationship. A woman who grieves a missing family member. A truck driver who finds personal liberation through her work. And a couple of new lovers hiding in the mountains as a plague spreads across the land, reckoning with a new reality that is at once more contained and more expansive than ever before.
Recorded on the traditional territory of the W̱SÁNEĆ (Mayne Island), British Columbia, over two summers and two winters, the music on We Were Radar Stations springs from the hands and minds of two long-time collaborators and childhood friends. Zoe and JUNO-nominated producer Adam Iredale-Gray are responsible for the majority of sounds on this album–various guitars, piano and keyboards, basses, programmed beats, strings, even recorder and waterphone–while drummers Kelby MacNayr and Jason Burger play on about half the songs. What ‘kind’ of music is it? It’s songs with words, traces of jazz school, folk-rock, open-mic night, the use of backbeats, breathy piano, blatant midi patches, Melodyne ghost harmonies, detuned guitars repeating nightmare riffs, and even a double-drum kit solo. You can dance to it if you like. You can also just sit and close your eyes or you can walk through the woods to it.
'Benefit Of The Doubt' is available now on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, and other digital retailers and streaming services worldwide. Zoe's new album We Were Radar Stations will be available everywhere on October 13th. For more information, please visit zoeguigueno.com.
