‘A Long & Distant Wave’: Devarrow Embraces Life's Ebbs and Flows With Sweet, Seductive, Soul-Stirring Folk

Canadian singer/songwriter Devarrow dives into the tender depths of his surprise-released third album ‘A Long & Distant Wave,’ a spirited, soft, and seductive folk record that dwells in the ebb and the flow of life, shining a soul-stirring spotlight on the oft-forgotten in-betweens.

for fans of Little Kid, Hovvdy, TOLEDO

Stream: “Kickin'” – Devarrow

Life feels a little sweeter – and moves a little slower – on Devarrow’s third studio album.

A vestige of (what already feels like) a ‘bygone’ era, A Long & Distant Wave came into being during a time of great disconnect and disarray; of uncertainty, fear, and sickness – an unprecedented global pandemic that brought much of the world to its knees.

But that’s not what we hear in Devarrow’s music; instead, the indie folk singer/songwriter’s third LP, surprise-released this past spring, basks in moments of stillness and movement, reflection and reconnection, exploration and contemplation, empathy and understanding. It’s a spirited, soft, and seductive record that dwells in the ebb and the flow, soaking in the fullness of our days and nights as Devarrow celebrates life’s little moments, shining a soul-stirring spotlight on the oft-forgotten in-betweens.

For a long time, that’s all most us had: One big, endless in-between. It turns out, those can be far more meaningful, important, and exciting than we ever gave credit for.

A Long & Distant Wave - Devarrow — A Long & Distant Wave – Devarrow

Woke up this morning
Kicking in the afterglow
Woke up this morning
Walking down the high school halls

‘Cause everything is a vision of
Everything is a vision of
Kicking again, kicking again

All the things I wanted to do
All the things I wanted to do
But I’m kicking again
Kicking again

Released April 26, 2024 via Paper Bag Records, A Long & Distant Wave is a warm and wondrous joyride through a day, month, and year in the life. Arriving nearly five years after Devarrow’s self-titled sophomore LP, the artist’s third album – surprise released with little warning – is an intimate, vulnerable, confessional collection of songs dwelling in the deep end of the emotional spectrum.

“This record was born out of the early days of the pandemic, while cooped up in my house in rural Nova Scotia,” Devarrow, Graham Ereaux, tells Atwood Magazine. “I’d recently moved rurally and acquired a nice collection of recording gear. Suddenly, with the world grinding to halt, and tours being canceled, I had plenty of time to dig into recording at a speed which felt more natural than cramming hours into someone else’s studio on someone else’s time. I loved the endless hours of music making, experimenting with my new gear, and exploring new ways of writing music. While pandemic narratives never really made it into the record (except for ‘Begin Again’), the forced stay at home gave me the space to reflect on life, memories, and time and build a record around that.”

“I didn’t really have a vision for a record, and instead was just spending days experimenting on my recording gear,” he explains. “After months of that, I noticed a theme starting to emerge across demos, and enough tracks to possibly make a record. If the sonic style is varied on the record across songs, that’s because in fact I was seeing most tracks as their own individual pieces, not paying too much attention to whether they would ever be put next to one another. It was a nice surprise when I noticed certain songs actually shared space nicely together. A lot of the ‘demos’ actually became the real song without re-recording them, because I found those first takes always captured the vibe best. ‘In Time’ is an example of that, it was the first demo I made on my new gear, and the demo just morphed into the final track, only adding drums and bass later on.”

**Devarrow candidly describes A Long & Distant Wave as a journey through space.**

The album’s title, he explains, is an homage to the world in which it was made.

“This record was written in the thick of the pandemic, and the ocean provided a place of refuge for me during that time. If I were to reflect on those early months of 2020, my memories are one of two things – long hours inside writing music, or long walks outside looking over a wintery and storm-swept ocean,” he smiles wistfully.

“I love staring at the ocean, and most specifically the waves. You can start to see waves coming from far off, watching them roll towards you, and then suddenly coming to an abrupt end as they crash on to land. It’s mesmerizing thinking that beyond the field of vision those waves are pulses from far off storms that could have happened days or weeks ago. The record is about time and memory, and these waves felt a fitting metaphor for how I was thinking about those things, and how I felt as an observer as memories and time crashed on to the shore.”

The decision to surprise-release A Long & Distant Wave was inspired by two things; a pull to get this music out there (and then move past it), and a desire to spend less time overthinking the release process and just letting the music exist in the world.

“I’ve had this finished for several years now, so I was eager to get it released,” Devarrow says. “I have another more folk-pop focused record scheduled for release in the latter half of 2024, and I felt it was really important for this record to come out first. It wouldn’t feel right to release them in the wrong order of writing them, hence the hasty release. I also just love surprises, and didn’t feel too attached to the idea of a ‘proper’ release plan. I think we put too much pressure on building up to release day, so it was cathartic to just say ‘here you go’ without having to put so much energy into it all.”

Upcoming music aside (more on that later), Devarrow considers his third album to make a significant shift in his artistry – specifically in his production style, with an embrace of experimentalism and abandonment of classic folk pop.

“A Long & Distant Wave was my first record which was fully produced, engineered, and recorded by myself, plus having a large hand in mixing too,” he notes. “Having that blind confidence in my home studio allowed me to explore new techniques for recording, while also making plenty of mistakes, albeit some happy accidents too. I explored a lot with incorporating mixing right into the production, adding tape delays, distortion, and hard filters right into the performance. It was a real joy to expand my creative freedom from songwriting right into engineering and mixing, and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way now.”

“The second significant shift in this record was introducing more collaboration from my band mates – allowing them to really lean into their own skills and musicianship to compliment the record. I stayed away from drum loop four-on-the-floor rhythms, opting for more ‘70s inspired beats, which were executed beautifully by Evan Matthews. Daniel Crowther also had a great hand in ‘vibe checking’ some guitar tone, which can be heard nicely on ‘Kickin’,’ ‘Else,’ and ‘A Shadow Apart.’”

**While it’s not exactly an onomatopoeia, A Long & Distant Wave without a doubt evokes the sensations its vivid name conjures in the brain.**

The record itself is gentle yet fierce; intimate yet intense; soft, yet cinematic. Highlights abound on the journey from album opener “Kickin'” to the heart-on-sleeve “Hard Times Coming,” with standouts including the ruminative “Something About Getting Old,” the dreamy, ethereal “A Shadow Apart,” the aching, emotionally charged “In Time,” the buoyant and brooding “Else,” and the beautifully melancholic “Begin Again.” In between these songs are two largely instrumental pieces – the expansive “Memories” and the gently stirring piano piece “A Long & Distant Wave.”

“It was fun to experiment with instrumental pieces, trying to capture vibe without the support of lyrics,” Devarrow says on the topic of his own personal highlights. “It felt very freeing to just sit by my recording gear and piano and synths and start building songs out of nothing with no worry for structure, choruses, melodies, or lyrics. I also really enjoyed playing lead electric, and learning how to “solo” a bit more, as heard on ‘Race Car Driver,’ ‘Something About Getting Old,’ and ‘In Time.’”

Lyrics-wise, he says he has favorites, but he first must add a caveat. “Oddly enough, I don’t think of myself as a lyrically forward artist,” he shrugs. “In fact, a large percentage of my lyrics are ad-libed with the first take being the last take. I often find stream of consciousness singing reveals a lot of truth about how I’m feeling in that moment. I’ll often start there, find the seed, and then build around it.”

“That said, I think I quite like the lyrics of ‘Memories.’ Very simple and repetitive, but they really reflect how I was feeling. That song was written after the death of a dear friend, and I spent a lot of time being surrounded by their memories, so it felt fitting to just repeat the lyric over and over again. Actually, a lot of songs on the record don’t actually have a ‘second’ verse, and instead is just a repeat of the first verse.”

We may now be a few years removed from the environment that brought A Long & Distant Wave‘s ten tender and turbulent songs to life, but the record nevertheless resonate with a remarkable vibrance – its songs speaking to the world we live and breathe today, yesterday, and tomorrow.

Because life itself is the long and distant wave; it’s the storm we can neither deny nor overcome nor tame, an ever-present force that exists with and without us.

“I don’t demand too much of my listeners, so I guess I feel little attachment to whether listeners take away anything resembling my own intentions with the record,” Devarrow shares. “I often feel we put too much pressure on ourselves as artists, believing our art is a failure if the message we intended to share didn’t get received. My music is cathartic for myself and my own reasons, and I hope only for my listeners to listen, and want to return to it for whatever it makes them feel. If it’s for the same reasons as me, then that’s great, but if you want to listen regardless of content or message, and just because you like the way it sounds, that’s just as meaningful to me.”

“Creating this record was very formative in my own understand and confidence as a sound engineer and producer. I have taken away a great deal of knowledge in this regard. I also think this record acted as a form of therapy in a time when art felt like the best way to soothe the soul. I was able to spend a lot of time processing feelings associated with isolation, changing times, and shifting memories.”

Experience the full record via our below stream, and peek inside Devarrow’s A Long & Distant Wave with Atwood Magazine as he takes us track-by-track through the music and lyrics of his third studio album!

Devarrow is now in the process of releasing singles off his fast-approaching fourth album Heart Shaped Rock, out October 4 via Paper Bag Records. He’s currently on tour playing dates in Europe throughout September, before returning to Canada for Pop Montreal Festival and a slew of shows toward the end of the year. Find tickets and more information at devarrow.com!

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:: stream/purchase A Long & Distant Wave here ::

:: connect with Devarrow here ::

Stream: ‘A Long & Distant Wave’ – Devarrow

:: Inside A Long & Distant Wave ::

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ALBUM SUMMARY

A Long & Distant Wave is an exploration of memory and time, conceived and recorded amid the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic but steering clear of any pandemic-centric narrative. The artist crafts a poignant collection that delves into the complexities of change, nostalgia, and the dissonance of life’s moments. Each track serves as a snapshot, capturing diverse experiences without adhering to a linear narrative. The album’s emotive journey navigates through rural inspirations, pandemic reflections, instrumental experimentation, and the profound impact of loss. With a deliberate avoidance of a traditional lyrical arc, the record invites listeners into a contemplative space, echoing the ebb and flow of existence—a series of waves that crash upon the shore and linger beyond view, symbolizing the essence of introspection amidst life’s perpetual changes.

KICKIN’

The inception of “Kickin'” is a bit murky, but the moment it became a full song is a strong and fond memory. The first half of the song came from some doodling in 2017 or so. I brought this to my band when we spent a long weekend demoing and workshopping songs at an old and frigid farmhouse in rural Nova Scotia. We were all listening to Kurt Vile at the time, and felt inspired to make a repeating jam as the second half. We made a demo that weekend which almost made the cut as the final version, but perfectionism got the best of me, and I re-recorded it at my home studio in 2020.

SOMETHING ABOUT GETTING OLD

This song was born from an iPhone demo of a basic melody I wrote in a park in a small town in Northern BC. The lyrics came from a place of sadness, mourning the reality of growing up, and the reluctant acceptance of change. I left it at that, and on workshopping for a record in 2020, I unearthed it, finding it fit well with a laid back yet melancholic vibe. In fact, it was one of the first songs I recorded for A Long & Distant Wave, and helped form the backbone of the record’s vibe and lyrical content. This song was also one of the first times I experimented with ad libbing lyrics, and in fact, the lyrics of the outro were all done in one take, with no ready made writing or prompts.

BEGIN AGAIN

This song is the closest thing I’ve ever written to a COVID song. I wrote it quickly in one sitting days after returning home abruptly from a US tour in March 2020. I remember this distinct moment, the day the world shut down, and how surreal it felt to be in New York City while the world felt like it was crumbling. In a blur, we canceled our tour, got in a taxi and drove to the airport. I will never forget that image of looking out over the Manhattan skyline from the window of a taxi on the highway. The terror of the unknown palpable among us. I returned home to rural Canada, and this song quickly emerged as a way to release my anxiety of that event, but also breathe hope into an uncertain future.

A SHADOW APART

This song was one of my first times experimenting with making an instrumental track. I have never considered myself a technically proficient musician, and I have very little knowledge of theory. I recall this song being written by me just hitting random keys on the piano until I found sounds that felt strange and dissonant. I have no idea what those chords are, but they captured how I was feeling at the time. A Shadow Apart is again, about time and memory, and the distance between now and then often feeling dissonant and abstract.

MEMORIES

“Memories” was one of the last songs to make it on to the record, being recorded in the winter of 2021. At this time, I was experiencing the grief of a dear friend of mine succumbing to a long battle with cancer. This friend represented a distinct period in my life, and with their death, I felt the loss of not only them, but also the loss of an era of my life. First written on the piano, Memories took its final shape with Evan Matthews and I doing a live session in my basement studio late one night. Evan played synth, and I sang directly into the microphone beside him. The song was recorded in one take, and only a couple of extra layers of synth and the deep piano were added afterwards. It felt right to sing from the heart, and not let any production cloud how I was feeling in my emotion.

RACE CAR DRIVER

“Race Car Driver” was written in March of 2020, being an attempt to blend pop with a more lo-fi DIY folk rock sound. I was inspired by Chris Cohen at this time, and admired how he took pop structure and melody, and was able to blend it so well with totally weirdo experimental production. The lyrics come from a place of feeling caught between my heart and my mind – wanting to do one thing, but my heart wanting something else, and how following one over the other is often an easy escape from the greater challenge of letting the heart and mind coexist in the same body.

IN TIME

“In Time” was the first song I recorded for this record, and in fact, the first song I ever recorded in my home studio. It came from a meandering jam I was having with myself by looping layers of vocals and guitar. I’d admit that at first it felt like an unfinished two dimensional bedroom recording, but after revisiting it, I found it’s odd song structure to be strangely compelling, and a nice reflection of what A Long & Distant Wave would inevitably be about.

A LONG AND DISTANT WAVE

The title track off of this record was written in an empty apartment in Halifax, soon before it was to be torn down to make way for a new condo development. The house had been vacated, but not wanting to move a heavy piano, the tenants left it in the space. I re-recorded the song at home on my own piano, and added some sounds of waves and synth to give the effect I was going for. The song is an attempt at trying to capture the feeling of introspection as we experience change in our lives, and the title is a reference to the idea that we can only see waves as they appear in front of us upon the shore, but out there, beyond view, are the waves of experience yet to be seen. This record is a reflection on this, and trying to pause time to observe the space between two waves as they approach the shore, and also keeping the memory of waves present, after they explode upon the shore. No waves exist in the past, yet can we hold them in memory, no matter how small or insignificant? As an interesting aside, A Long and Distant Wave is also featured on the second half of Bells Larsen’s song Atlantic Love. Bells recorded his album Good Grief at my studio at the same time I was writing and recording A Long & Distant Wave, and we decided to add this song to the end of his, as a way to link our experiences of recording and songwriting together.

ELSE

“Else,” similar to “Kickin’,” emerged from a weekend of demoing in a farmhouse in rural Nova Scotia. There was an old out of tune piano at the farmhouse, and we used it to come up with a few ideas. Else started not as a song per say, but rather an exercise in live performing where we’d try and hit the notes all at exactly the same time. In some ways, it’s harder to be tight as a band when the notes are farther apart. This exercise developed into what became “Else.” The demo was written with much more loud and aggressive lyrics, but upon re-recording in my home studio, I decided to go with a more laid back approach as a way for it to settle in more smoothly with the other tracks on the record. The lyrics, while repetitive, were about the Trump presidency, and how I wished people could just believe in someone else. A lot of the lyrics on A Long & Distant Wave are quite repetitive, partly because the songs were written out of stream of consciousness jamming, but also because the content was less about a narrative, and more about expressing the repetitive nature of experience.

HARD TIMES COMING

Originating from a place of classic folk, “Hard Times Coming” almost didn’t make it onto the record, but given that it was written at the same time, and contained similar lyrical content, I ended up putting it on in the end, even if it didn’t perfectly match the vibe of the rest of the record. The song was an attempt at trying to write the simplest song I could, while still having all the hallmarks of a good classic folk rock song. I also forgo solos in my music most of the time, but it was fun to let Daniel Crowther dig into a fun solo at the end of the song. It felt like a fresh and fun way to end a record that is otherwise quite melancholic.

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