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Toronto singer/songwriter Scott Hardware has shared a new single, “Joy,” taken from his forthcoming second album, Engel, out on April 3 via Telephone Explosion Records. Engel follows 2016’s Mutate, Repeat, Infinity, and it “marks the end of a three-year process of writing, recording and letting down his guard (for better or worse).”
The gorgeous, piano-led “Joy” is marked by regal art-pop and Hardware’s thoughtfully stitched lyricism. It has that satisfyingly cinematic feeling where the whole world is ahead of you—a gentle breeze caresses your face as you’re seconds anyway from stumbling into a stranger who could change your life. It’s sensitive and vulnerable, yet dramatic and awe-inspiring.
Per a press release, Engel was inspired by the 1987 Wim Wenders film Wings of Desire. “I sought with this album to capture the film’s velvety feeling—in turns funny, depressing, dark and mundane—in LP form,” Hardware says. “These songs imagine Wenders’ angels buzzing around my friends, my family and I. Writing from their point of view allowed me unfettered access to my own thoughts about them and myself.”
Listen to “Joy” below.