SPILL NEW MUSIC: YAWN SHARES NEW LYRIC VIDEO FOR “YOU & I” | DEBUT LP ‘WISH I COULD’VE’ OUT NOW

YAWN SHARES NEW LYRIC VIDEO FOR “YOU & I” | DEBUT LP WISH I COULD’VE OUT NOW

KILLBEAT MUSIC

Yawn (Julia McDougall) follows up her debut record, wish i could’ve, with the lyric video for album track “you & i”. Directed by media artist Colby Richardson (Feist, Alvvays, Naomi Klein), the video features the experimental filmmaker using a video mixer while listening to the song at half-speed and ‘playing’ along to the song intuitively, altering the shapes and colours throughout the song. The colours make a shift to black and white at the climax of the song, reflecting the tension that has built up in the lyrics throughout.

“I asked Colby to choose a song and after a bit of discussion and direction gave him full liberty to do as he pleased with this one,” says McDougall. “He’s a true creative and I wanted him to work with the song he connected the most with, our meetings were hilarious and fun because they were centred around colour palettes and deciding what had or didn’t have ‘Yawn’ energy.”

MORE ABOUT YAWN + wish i could’ve

For the past several years, Julia McDougall has been holed away working on her debut record as Yawn, uniting her far-ranging sensibilities into a supercharged core of misty dream-pop and electronic haze. What’s come out of the clouds are twelve carefully crafted songs that have been developed as inspiration struck from all around her. With a composition degree from Simon Fraser University and a mainstay presence in underground venues and festivals across Western Canada, McDougall’s intricately-layered pop stylings emerge in stories of longing, nostalgia, loss, and hope.

wish i could’ve ALBUM REVIEW

Primarily produced by Jo Hirabayashi (Jo Passed), wish i could’ve is a record about getting older, about losing track of dreams, and being met with feelings of futility and failure. It’s a record about wanting more but not getting it, about loving and losing people, how we move forward, how some feelings never leave us, and how more often than not in life there is no tidy resolution. “I like to write songs that pin down all the feelings that are left floating around, the ones that, even years later, we can’t really make sense of,” McDougall writes. And while many of the songs touch on heavier subject matters, there is still room for lightness and humour in her work.

wish i could’ve is a record that was made to make you simultaneously laugh, cry, sway and dance and it holds a universality that reaches out and holds the listener’s hand. Amongst this panorama of emotion is McDougall’s distinct voice, laid out across Yawn’s spectrum of melodies as the melancholic heart of the project. With cues from Beach House, Haim, Mitski and Caroline Polacheck, Yawn’s sound and vision will linger with you like fog on a spring morning, lifting with the heat of the sun to reveal the buds finally opening.

Yawn
wish i could’ve
(Killbeat Music)
Release Date: June 13, 2025

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Photo Credit: Myriam Strong