Shaina Hayes (Bonsound) unveils playful, country-tinged title-track 'Kindergarten Heart', two days before her album release
New album Kindergarten Heart is due out on February 23rd via Bonsound
"Shaina Hayes combines poetic storytelling with enhanced and electrified folk to sustain listeners through the colder months." The Line Of Best Fit
“The Canadian indie-folk musician and former farmer plays a light touch acoustic guitar, her fingers dancing across the melody of the title track in particular” Uncut
“A winding folk song, colored by downtempo, meditative rhythms, and hazy scrawls of guitar. It is gentle and unhurried, drifting in a bleary swirl of sun-dappled instrumentation and plaintive lyricism." Under The Radar
This Friday, February 23, Shaina Hayes will unveil Kindergarten Heart, her sophomore effort and debut Bonsound release. Today, she presents the album’s title-track, an uplifting and playful song with a distinctive country feel. Over the next few weeks, Shaina Hayes will be flying to Austin, Texas, to perform at SXSW, before taking her show on tour across Quebec.
With the previous singles Sun and Time and New Favorite, Shaina Hayes garnered attention from Consequence, KCRW (NPR), The Line of Best Fit and Under the Radar, as well as an enthusiastic review in Uncut for her new album.
On Kindergarten Heart, Shaina Hayes gets back in touch with the childlike, carefree parts of herself that she sometimes forgets exist. With delicate restraint, the song begins with sparkling fingerstyle guitar over an ambient pedal steel. With her angelic voice, Hayes describes the patient act of peeling back the inhibitions of adulthood in order to recover the magic and ‘’kindergarten heart’’ at one's core. With its playfulness, Kindergarten Heart lays the table for the journey down memory lane into which the singer-songwriter takes us throughout her new album.
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 (from the band zouz) who co-produced the record. Together, the three worked to gently weave elements of nostalgia, wonder and lightheartedness into this collection of songs. The result is a sophomore album which is both whimsical and earnest, and whose soothing charm is also reflected in the record’s artwork, thanks to Lawrence Fafard’s pictures. In its final form, the album is about the act of looking back, either through an active lens to inform the current moment, or through a more passive lens, as a means of honoring one’s memories and the people they contain.
About Shaina Hayes
Raised in Shigawake, in the Gaspésie region of Québec, Hayes grew up listening to singer-songwriters like Feist, Joni Mitchell and Regina Spektor, traditional country artists like Hank Williams and Dolly Parton, and modern country stars including Shania Twain and The Chicks. After studying agricultural sciences at McGill University in Montreal, she returned to her rural hometown to record and co-produce her self-released debut album, to coax a waltz, which came out in April 2022. Following the release of her album, she started recording new songs, while also performing across Quebec and opening for bands like The War on Drugs and The Barr Brothers. While she still maintains some engagement with her farming endeavors, Shaina Hayes has made the shift to devote herself fully to her music ahead of the release of her album Kindergarten Heart due on February 23rd, 2024.
Tour dates
02/24/2024 - Laval, QC - Salle André-Mathieu (Supporting Elisapie)
03/16/2024 - Austin, TX - Las Perlas (SXSW)
03/22/2024 - Maskinongé, QC - Magasin Général Le Brun
03/23/2024 - Brossard, QC - Le Club DIX30
03/29/2024 - Drummondville, QC - Espace Mandeville
04/04/2024 - Montréal, QC - Le Ministère (Album launch show)
04/06/2024 - Québec City, QC - Théâtre Petit Champlain
04/19/2024 - Lévis, QC - Vieux Bureau de Poste
04/20/2024 - Saint-Hyacinthe, QC - Le Zaricot
05/03/2024 - Sainte-Geneviève, QC - Salle Pauline-Julien
05/04/2024 - Longueuil, QC - Salle Jean-Louis-Millette - Théâtre de la Ville
05/16/2024 - Trois-Rivières, QC - Salle Louis-Philippe-Poisson
05/25/2024 - Gatineau, QC - Cabaret La Basoche
Tracklist
Early Riser
Kindergarten Heart
Fun
Sidewalk
A Thousand Perfect Words
Heat Wave
Fool Forlorn
Mastery
Shaina Hayes Online:
