THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Slowly, It Dawns is the debut album from singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Victoria Canal. The culmination of a lifetime of musical knowledge, experimentation and a fearless approach to her craft, Canal’s album marks a new chapter: a moment of newfound clarity about the artist she wants to be.
Slowly, It Dawns finds Canal embarking on a path that mirrors the unraveling of the human experience. “Life does feel like the sun rising,” she shares of the record’s evocative title. “You come into the world with very little clarity on the way things are — everything’s a little hazy and confusing. Then, as you get older, your eyes adjust to what life is; it gets messy and complicated, then spiritual and expansive.”
Written over the course of the past three years and recorded between London and Los Angeles, the album captures this sentiment as much musically as it does lyrically. From the sun-kissed indie pop of June Baby and Cuban-inflected sizzle of California Sober, to the meditative instrumentals of Totally Fucking Fine and the cinematic desperation of Cake, Canal’s stunning range is on full display across 12 revealing tracks.
“It’s 6 a.m., you’re still going on a night out and everything’s gone a little too wonky… ” says Canal of the sond Cake. “Cake is the bottled-up feeling of dreading (and therefore adamantly avoiding) going back to adult responsibilities, and indeed the crushing weight of the world. It’s the desperate desire to hold on to the escape just a little bit longer, even as it starts to go sour.”
Her 2022 EP Elegy found her working through grief, while 2023’s Well Well was the “wounded rebirth” that inevitably followed. With Slowly, It Dawns, she’s ready to step into the truest version of herself. “I’m trying to be honest and unapologetic about what I want to put out there, whether it’s wholesome, sexy, loud, quiet, if I’m being femme or masc; I don’t want to apologize for it.”
