[Cover photo credit to Lawrence Fafard]

Montreal-based Folk singer Shaina Hayes has returned with new single + video, “Sun and Time,” a track “dedicated to those who’ve had any kind of encounter with the winter blues.” “Sun and Time” comes from her upcoming album Kindergarten Heart, out February 23, 2024 via Bonsound. 

Hayes says:

‘Sun and Time’ was written for a dear friend who I used to run a vegetable farm with. It describes the intense lows that we would both feel in the winter when we’d begin to get stir-crazy waiting for the next growing season to begin. The song is a plea for her to remember the beautiful things that we were able to accomplish together, the strength of her character, and the fact that, at the very least, there’s always another summer somewhere around the corner!

The track is accompanied by a video created by Flavie Lemée and Charles-David Dubé using footage captured during Shaina Hayes’ 2023 summer tour of Québec. It’s also a “nostalgic nod to sunshine and summertime.”

Kindergarten Heart is Shaina Hayes’ follow-up to to coax a waltz, released independently in 2022. On both albums, the singer-songwriter worked with Francis Ledoux and David Marchand (zouz) who co-Produced the record.

Due to the “gray monotony of the pandemic,” Hayes realized that she had to make an effort to “tap back into joy and play.” During this period, the initial theme of Kindergarten Heart began to take shape: “the rekindling of childlike wonder.” During the making of the album though, the theme evolved to “encompass all memory, not simply of childhood.”