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“I wrote all of these intricate melodies and lines to try to make the guitar chords sound as euphoric as they did in my head, only to end up literally reversing, slowing down, and chopping up every single one until they were not only unrecognizable, but also melancholic and surreal,” Gay explains of the atypical process.
That uneasy balance runs through the song’s lyrics, too. “Initially about expressing love and gratitude for my relationships, they landed somewhere closer to love, gratitude, and disappointment,” Gay says. It is a tension that defines much of Only Sun, Only Moon, a nine-track collection shaped by years of upheaval, loss, and an international relocation that forced Gay to commit fully to music.
The Toronto-born, now New York-based songwriter left a job in social work in Vancouver in 2024 to reunite with old bandmates in Toronto and revive Lockimara’s live presence. That move led to his 2025 debut, A Vision Again, but the ground kept shifting. A year later, he was in New York pursuing a master’s degree in music production while a long-term relationship unravelled. The new record emerged directly from that period of migration and emotional whiplash, with Gay writing, producing and playing nearly everything himself.
The title and its two corresponding tracks reflect a central paradox that Gay was chasing: polarity within emotional and musical spectrums, tied together to make something cohesive yet contrasting. Acoustic delicacy sits alongside glitchy, sample-heavy electronics; intimacy and grandeur swap places across the tracklist. Gay cites a grab-bag of mixed influences, from Elliott Smith and My Bloody Valentine to A.G. Cook and Spirit of the Beehive.
“Every Day” follows previous singles “Tastes Like” and “December”.
English (US) · 