There are more than a few reasons for us Americans to be jealous of our Canadian neighbors to the north (health care, hockey, pandemic response), but we can now add music to the list. We’ve hyped our fair share of Canadian talent across our digital pages this summer, and now we’re embracing another in Nyssa, a singer, songwriter, and producer from Toronto who has us worked up over her colorful new track “The Swans.”
It’s a joyous jolt of synth-pop that builds its euphoria to a fever pitch, and it’s a call back to some memorable classics of yesterday.
“‘The Swans’ is a present day, apocalypse-era reply to Springsteen’s ‘Dancing In The Dark’ or Bowie’s ‘Modern Love’,” Nyssa says. “I wrote it before the pandemic, but in anticipation of the need to live above and against the fire and brimstone, to forever fall in love with the natural world. The forsaking of matrimony in ‘The Swans’ is just another chain-cutting metaphor, another way of saying no to the trappings of the past and committing to a freer future. It’s an anti-property love song directed at the entire experience of living.”
“The Swans” will be featured on Nyssa’s forthcoming album Girls Like Me, which shows off the artist’s hybrid of sounds. It’s out August 21.