Canadian indie alt-pop songstress Jeen releases “Anything You Want” today, the second single off her forthcoming self-titled album due October 9, 2020. Produced with renowned Toronto musician/producer Ian Blurton (Change of Heart, C’mon, Future Now) during an armageddon snowstorm in Toronto 2019, the song features a cameo by Kevin Fox on the cello. Purchase and stream worldwide today via DSPs HERE.
“‘Anything You Want’ was kind of a mantra for me,” shares Jeen. “A reminder to stay on the path we choose and not what others choose for us. That night we lost power in his warehouse basement studio and we couldn’t really get out of the city for a few days, so we all just kept our heads down and kept working.”
The first “crisp, laid back” single “Deep End” premiered last month via American Songwriter and is already making waves across the pond. BBC Sounds featured the track, calling it a “brilliant song…”, and Ireland’s Today FM featured the track during Ed’s National Anthems who tweeted, “Her name is Jeen and bloody hell it’s brilliant.”
“Deep End” draws inspiration from dealing with depression and anxiety, and is co-produced by Jeen and Ian Blurton, featuring Brendan Canning on bass. It’s accompanied by an official lyric video from Stephen Hutchins, available to watch and share HERE. Jeen reveals that “‘Deep End’ comes from a darker place than its bright vibe implies… a bit like smiling when really you feel like shit. “I wrote it in a last-minute realization that we needed more songs to round out the album, so I felt defeated and tired and consequently that’s all I could write about that day. Since it was a last-minute addition, my brother Ben O’Brien couldn’t make it back into the studio to play bass, so I called in my old friend Brendan Canning who came in for us.”
Recorded in Toronto last year, the 12 songs on Jeen are slated to be her strongest yet, featuring Ian Blurton on lead guitar, Stephan Szczesniak on drums, Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene, Cookie Duster) & Ben O’Brien on bass, and Jeff Heisholt on synths. In September 2018, Jeen released Gift Shop on Red Brick Songs, with premieres for “Any Moment” via Indie88 and video via Exclaim!; “Medicate Me” via Billboard; “Pull Out Your Knives” via The Big Takeover. With this LP, she honed her unique, vintage sound. Gift Shop features anthemic reverb-fueled indie-pop and is produced by Jeen and mixed by Blurton who plays guitar in Jeen’s live band and on the lead single “Any Moment” which he also co-produced with Jeen.
“Any Moment” garnered the #10 Top Gainer on the Alternative Radio charts upon its debut, was officially added to The Verge on SiriusXM, and climbed the CBC Radio 3 Top 30 chart. An established and successful songwriter with a penchant for crafting hooky, sync-worthy songs, Jeen became the vocalist and co-writer for Cookie Duster, the side project from Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene) and appears on their 2012 album When Flying Was Easy. In 2014, Jeen released her debut solo LP Tourist which immediately got picked up by NPR’s beloved and influential show All Songs Considered who featured lead single “Everywhere I Go” and highlighted Jeen in its 9 Creative Musicians You Should Know radio episode in 2015.
The attention landed her a feature showcase slot at TIFF’s 2015 Canadian Music Café extensively broadening her reach in a sync market she had already well established herself in. Jeen’s 2016 sophomore LP Modern Life continued to build on her debut success with Consequence of Sound calling it, ‘…catchy, anthemic indie pop’. Both albums resulted in significant sync success for Jeen with song placements in various commercials (Google, Panasonic, Estée Lauder, Kraft, BlackBerry, KIA, Rogers, MasterCard, Molson) as well as notable movies and televisions shows (Cook Off, Republic of Doyle, Instant Star, Ruby Gloom, Degrassi, Killjoys, Hockey Wives, Workin’ Moms, MTV Catfish, MTV Are You the One). If her songwriting resume isn’t impressive enough, Jeen has also written for many recording artists including Great Big Sea, Serena Ryder, Res, Hawksley Workman, Brendan Canning, FUWA FUWA (j-pop) and Martin “Doc” McKinney. More information on the new LP will be released in the coming weeks.
