Beau Wheeler comes through with Flying Colours on their soul-stirring, life-affirming new single — premiering exclusively on Tinnitist.
The second single and title track from Beau’s new album — which also arrives Friday — Flying Colours finds the Vancouver singer-songwriter reaching for the sky with a powerful number than opens with just a starkly smouldering acoustic guitar and slowly builds into a blazing, rafter-rattling anthem of rebirth, resilience and battling back against the darkness.
“Flying Colours is a comeback song,” says Beau. “It’s a song I wrote while I was going through treatment for cancer. I was thinking about a time when I could play music at shows with my friends again. I just wanted to be one of the people out there making music. Now when I play it, it seems to really resonate with people because everyone seems to need a comeback song right now. This is a beautiful time for the arts, like a flowering of culture. Lots of difficult things are happening, but also lots of amazing things. I also came out as trans during the pandemic. This song is super gay.”
Wheeler is a queer non-binary composer and singer. Blessed with a set of pipes that would be the envy of Torch and Twang-era kd lang or a young Robert Plant, Beau is about to release two new albums of music that capture the breadth and diversity of their musical vision. Theirs is a music that encompasses a wide spectrum of human experience. With songs that touch on love, loss and redemption, and an unflagging ability to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again, Beau is one of Canada’s brightest lights and an artist to watch out for.
Their music pulls no punches as it shines a light on gender, surviving cancer, and the all too human experience of love in a way that turns the dark and sour stuff of life into something beautiful and hopeful. Beau’s songs remind us that we’ve all been there and that no matter how low you are feeling that there’s hope. You’re not alone. Pain and joy form equal parts of life’s equation. The essential magic of Beau’s work lies in this unflinching ability to fearlessly open up and bring a room full of strangers together to share and heal from the vulnerabilities that we all feel.
Beau’s musical roots go deep. As an artist whose grandfather played piano with Nat King Cole and Sammy Davis Jr., they are aware that a good song is a good song, regardless of style and tempo. This diverse musical heritage inspired their adventurous decision to record and release two vastly different albums at the same time. The first is an acoustic album that they recorded live off the floor with their band. Co-produced with Jesse Waldman in the roots music tradition of recording the singer and musicians playing together, it’s a deep and soulful record that should earn Beau a lot of new fans.
The second release is a darkwave synth-pop album produced by Jason Corbett of Actors. A true solo album, Beau performs all of the instrumentation and vocals to deliver an authentic and emotionally direct collection of songs that only an artist of the highest calibre could hope to conjure.
Over the years, Beau has performed at the Vancouver Juno Awards (2018), recorded and toured with several of their own bands as well as contributing vocals to A Small Wonder by A.C. Newman of New Pornographers, and has shared the stage with many ground breaking artists including Dan Mangan, Shane Koyczan and Tanya Tagaq. Beau’s music is the light at the end of the tunnel, a message of hope in dark times. Whether performing solo in a one room wooden church as part of ArtsWells or with their band The Black Salt Sea in larger theatre settings, showcasing at Folk Alliance or live-streaming for the Philadelphia Folk Society, a vulnerable humanity exudes from everything Beau communicates. Bridges are crossed. Wounds are healed. Warm, immediate and illuminating, the light Beau creates is one you want to bask in.
Flying Colours will be available on June 2 on Spotify, Apple Music/iTunes, and other digital retailers and streaming services worldwide. Listen to the song above, sample more music from Beau Wheeler below, and find them on their website, Facebook and Instagram.
