Patrick Watson’s Uh Oh Out September 26 On Secret City Records
New Album Turned Into A Collection Of Collaborations After Losing His Voice And Not Knowing If He’d Ever Sing Again
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Photo Credit: Lawrence Fafard |
Featuring Anachnid, Charlotte Cardin, Charlotte Oleena, Hohnen Ford, Klô Pelgag, La Force, Maro, Martha Wainwright, November Ultra And Solann
WATCH THE VIDEO / LISTEN TO “PETER AND THE WOLF”
Singer-songwriter, film composer and pianist Patrick Watson has announced that he will release his new album Uh Oh on September 26 (Secret City Records), alongside new single and video "Peter and the Wolf". The 11 new original songs find Watson meditating on the idea of life being a series of “uh ohs”: a little phrase uttered in response to everything from childhood accidents to our most overwhelming anxieties. For Watson, it came to mind when faced with the biggest “uh oh” that a singer could endure: he lost his voice. Unsure if or when he would be able to sing again, his new album took a new shape, a collection of collaborations with friends and strangers; artists that he wanted to hear sing. Uh Oh represents a vision that Watson has chased for his entire life, the culmination of 20 years of musical exploration and lived experience that enabled him to translate the films in his mind to the sounds and words swirling in your ears.
Pre-order the Uh Oh vinyl HERE
Most of the songs on Uh Oh see Watson and his band, long-time bandmates, collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Mishka Stein, and Olivier Fairfield and co-vocalist Ariel Engle—a.k.a. La Force) joined by a guest singer, ranging from the iconic voices he’s idolized for years (Martha Wainwright) to ones he discovered through Instagram scrolling (Solann); a local Quebec favorite (Klô Pelgag) to international phenoms (MARO, Hohnen Ford, November Ultra); from JUNO Award-winning pop star (Charlotte Cardin), to Félix award winner (Anachnid), to a friend he met when she worked the counter at this local coffee shop (Charlotte Oleena). “Every singer has these different magical powers on this record, and each song kind of represents that,” Watson says.
Watson - a Polaris Music Prize winner whose song “Je te laisserai des mots” recently became the first French language song to cross 1 billion streams on Spotify- reflects on the situation of making music after losing his voice by saying: “Obviously, I like singing for people, but I was really enjoying my Modular [synth] and diving into instrumental music”—a natural inclination for Watson, who’s composed over 15 film scores to date. “But then I was like, ‘Oh, it’d be cool to write songs for all these different singers that I really want to hear sing—I’ll find my way out of this situation that way.’ Because my voice wasn’t supposed to come back. And when it did, I just thought having all these other singers featured was still a cooler idea for a record than me singing alone.”
Hearing how the songs on Uh Oh flow seamlessly into one another, one might never guess that it was recorded in multiple locations—Montreal, New Orleans, L.A., Mexico City, Paris—with a minimalist approach, using just two microphones, in mostly one or two takes. And one might perhaps not guess that Watson spent two months studying Cardi B’s “Up” to get the mix just right.
Along with today’s announcement, Watson has shared “Peter and the Wolf,” a menacing, dream-like song inspired by the ghosts of New Orleans and the pitch black-ness of being in the forest in the dark. The pulse-pounding new video, directed by Patrick Watson and SAM WOY was shot in the Quebec countryside.
Watch the video for “Peter and the Wolf” HERE
Listen to “Peter and the Wolf” HERE
Says Watson, about the song: “This is something I never could’ve written when I was younger. When I originally wrote this track, I was with my partner Heather in the woods and she was talking about rewriting Peter and the Wolf. When you’re in the forest at night and it's cloudy and the dark hits the tree line, it just goes pitch black. So I wrote the music thinking about that—not really a wolf, but that pitch-blackness. And then I went to New Orleans with Heather O’Neill and in the middle of the night, I took a walk outside, and New Orleans is just filled with ghosts at night— it's a really magical place. I was all by myself and then this car came slowly down the street. It was this really classy car and there was this crazy low-end just purring from far away and kind of rolling towards me. In the low end it was shaking all the houses and all the windows, the way it moved was so graceful and slow, it was quite wonderful. There was just something about when I was staring at that car that reminded me of when I was staring into the forest at night. I was staring at the same ghost in a lot of ways—it felt like I was in a dream as it was coming towards me. And I thought, ‘I'm going to write this song as if the car is the wolf and I'm Peter.’
The first half of the song is about that, and for the second half of the song, we went to this really far away middle-of-nowhere swamp where we all went through these crazy trailer places where it looked like they were going to kill us, but then we got to the end of the swamp, and it was this beautiful emerald green everywhere we looked and it was like this thing that you wanted to taste but you knew it would kill you in a way. While we were down there, we ran into a lot of French speaking people which was really fun since I'm from Quebec. I decided to make the swamp a mermaid because you want to get into it and swim in it but the moment you do that it will just swallow you like it swallows everything that flows into it, It's interesting because that place is basically all of America flowing down there through it so that's a very interesting sensation.”
Watson has previously shared two songs from Uh Oh: “Silencio” with French artist November Ultra, and “Gordon in the Willows” with fellow Montrealer Charlotte Cardin. “Silencio” was the first preview of this new project, with Watson first revealing the loss of his voice, and among other impressions, finding the power of silence. It was recorded at Studio Rubin Alterio, an old artist’s loft in Paris. “Gordon in the Willows” was written and recorded by Watson and Cardin in a small lakeside village in Quebec, and around the song’s release last winter, they performed it during a surprise appearance on the top of Montreal’s Mont Royal.
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About Patrick Watson: Patrick Watson composes, performs, and records his albums with his long-time bandmates, collaborator and multi-instrumentalist Mishka Stein, and Olivier Fairfield. The Canadian artist reached gold and platinum status in multiple countries (including five certified gold albums in Canada), and his shows sell out around the world. Over the course of his career, Patrick has retained the uncanny ability to coexist in mainstream pop-culture spaces and on the avant-garde fringes. Patrick’s songs have been featured in primetime crowd-pleasers like Grey’s Anatomy and This Is Us, as well as in multiple arthouse films from Denis Villeneuve (Polytechnique), Wim Wenders (Perfect Days), Philippe Falardeau(C’est pas moi, je le jure!) and more. He’s an artist who’s as comfortable performing impromptu pop-up shows on the train tracks in a Quebec mining town as he is leading the BBC Orchestra at London’s prestigious Barbican. He’s an in-demand composer with over 15 film scores under his belt. He was awarded the prestigious inaugural Impact Award at the 2024 Canadian Sync Awards. Watson’s viral single "Je te laisserai des mots" became the first French song to accumulate 1 billion streams on Spotify. |
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Tour Dates June 20 - Saint-Casimir, QC - Festival la Commission B July 3 - Saguenay, QC - La Noce July 25 - Calgary, AB - Calgary Folk Music Festival October 5 - Las Vegas, NV - Rise Festival October 28 - Toulouse, France - Bikini October 29 - Bordeaux, France - Rocher de Palmer October 31 - Nantes, France - Stereolux November 1 - Rouen, France - Le 106 November 2 - Lausanne, Switzerland -Théâtre De Beaulieu November 4 - Paris, France - Zenith La Villette November 5 - Lyon, France - Transbordeur November 7 - London, United Kingdom - Troxy November 10 - Nijmegen, Netherlands - Concertgebouw de Vereeniging November 11 - Bruxelles, Belgium - BOZAR November 12 - Amsterdam, Netherlands - Carre Theatre
Tracklist 1. Silencio - Patrick Watson & November Ultra 2. Peter and the Wolf - Patrick Watson 3. The Wandering - Patrick Watson & MARO 4. Choir in the Wires - Patrick Watson 5. Uh Oh - Patrick Watson & Charlotte Oleena 6. The Lonely Lights - Patrick Watson & La Force 7. Ami imaginaire - Patrick Watson & Klô Pelgag 8. Postcards - Patrick Watson & Hohnen Ford 9. House on Fire - Patrick Watson & Martha Wainwright 10. Gordon in the Willows - Patrick Watson & Charlotte Cardin 11. Ça va - Patrick Watson & Solann |
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Secret City Records Online |