[Cover photo credit to Lawrence Fafard]
Montreal-based Folk singer/songwriter Shaina Hayes has announced her sophomore album Kindergarten Heart, set for release on February 23, 2024 via Bonsound. Kindergarten Heart follows last year’s debut album, to coax a waltz.
Alongside the announcement, Hayes also shared a first look at the project with the single + video, “New Favorite.” The track “looks back at the sparkle of new love, coaxing those feelings forward to the present.”
This concept of “purposeful remembering,” is central to Kindergarten Heart. The song “New Favorite” introduces these bigger themes.
Shaina Hayes was raised on a farm in a tiny town called Shigawake on the Gaspé coast of Quebec. After attending university in Montreal, Hayes participated in the city’s music scene, studying Jazz and singing in cover bands. She also sang backing vocals for the Noise-Rock band zouz, finding kindred spirits in the group’s Francis Ledoux and David Marchand.
Hayes shared her first song “Hollow” on Bandcamp in 2018. Following that, she returned to her hometown of Shigawake and began to record her debut album, to coax a waltz, eventually seeing to its release in April 2022. While she still maintains some engagement with her farming endeavors, Shaina Hayes has made the shift to devote herself fully to her music.
In late 2022, she once again teamed up with Ledoux and Marchand to start recording her sophomore album Kindergarten Heart as more opportunities began to unfold for her, opening for artists like The War on Drugs and The Barr Brothers.
