As obsessed with pop culture as he is detached from it, Toronto singer-songwriter and filmmaker David Jane brings a versed insight to the contemporary perspective, writing songs that are grounded in disconnection, uncertainty and desire. His voice is as honest as the thoughts and emotions he writes about. 

Following the 2020 release of David’s debut EP, Welcome to Today, he discovered new found inspiration in his lingering passion for film and enrolled at the Vancouver Film School. There, he found an amalgamation of community, creativity and adventure, fell in love for the first time and met many kindred spirits. Upon his return, David wrote, directed and produced his first short film, Apnea, which will officially premiere at Toronto’s acclaimed Blood in the Snow horror festival next month (November 2024).

Personally, however, the return home came with many new challenges. In Vancouver’s uncanny aftermath, David returned to a home that no longer felt like home, as if his life in Vancouver was left stranded outside of time. In reconnecting to the world and to himself as a person, however, David reconnected with himself as an artist as well, and, to process this transformative experience – the love, adventure and loss – he turned back to songwriting.

Brand new single, “Garden Out Back,” paves the way for a new set of songs that showcase a moment lost in time, reminiscing in hues of melancholic beauty. Inspired by David’s year in Vancouver and the slow fade ending of a relationship that began there, it begins by chronicling the helpless sense of futility in a long distance relationship before exploding into a desperate yearning to return to that lost time.

“Garden Out Back” marked my second collaboration with producer and multi-instrumentalist Sam Arion, perhaps best known for his solo project Mute Choir, and what’s been so great about Sam is that he’s able to create these deeply contemplative, ambient sonic atmospheres within the typical acoustic, somewhat traditional/folk-inspired structures I gravitate towards. The end-product then becomes this mix of traditional acoustic, lyric-focused songwriting that still centralizes the vocalist and the words while seamlessly pairing that with a very modern, contemplative, atmospheric soundscape. – David Jane