In the process of converting a bus parked outside a cabin in rural Canada into a recording space, Devarrow has, understandably, created a new record which sounds a whole lot like holing up in a converted bus in rural Canada. Heart Shaped Rock will arrive this fall via Paper Bag Records, and the record itself serves as something of a getaway from the pressing concerns addressed in songwriter Graham Ereaux’s previous material. “Working on this project has inspired me to invest more energy into linking lifestyle and a carefree attitude with music,” he explains. “In the past, I’ve written a lot of music reflecting on our social plights, and I’ve felt a desire to move away from that and focus more on the day-to-day, the mundane, and the little things in life which bring joy and happiness.”
The album’s latest single “Bus Baby” is an explicit ode to his four-wheeled vessel for (mental) escapism, a lilting folk-pop number that occasionally recalls his American peer Amen Dunes’ cabin-core indie recordings. “If all the other songs on this record are the chapters, ‘Bus Baby’ is the introduction,” Ereaux notes. “Over the last three years, I’ve spent a lot of time alone at the bus, working away on its conversion to a studio and retreat, and with all this time away from home, a joke emerged with my partner that I was cheating on her not with a person, but with the bus. So ‘Bus Baby’ is about my love affair with the bus, and it stands as a metaphor for me finding happiness and clarity in the mundane.”
The Super 8 video for the track naturally sees Devarrow posing in and around the bus, with one shot comically depicting him offering the cameraperson a cup of coffee—comical if you recall that this song is a love letter to an automobile. “The video has not much in ways of narrative structure, and is more a documentation of a day at the bus,” Ereaux says. “Putting this documentation to film made the whole visuals feel more authentic to the experience of being there—off-grid, woodsy, and old-fashioned.”
Check it out below.
