Doug Paisley photo, Say What You Like

Doing Paisley, Say What You Like

Canadian songwriter, singer Doug Paisley announces his forthcoming new album, ‘Say What You Like’ out March 17, 2023 via Outside Music, produced by Afie Jervanen (Bahamas.)

Culled from 250 unrecorded songs spanning a decade of unregulated creativity, Doug Paisley’s new album Say What You Like is a snapshot of an artist functioning at his best and highest level—honest, exposed, searching, and yet comforting in his ability to communicate the universal in the struggles of the individual. And, with the help of producer Afie Jervanen—perhaps best known as recording artist Bahamas—it manages to be groovy too. One gets the sense from these songs that Paisley simply must write.

“Say What You Like” is a moody country/funk/Americana song about dealing with the ghosts of the past when they come to call. Paisley’s laidback vocals are supported by perfectly-interwoven acoustic and electric guitar parts that conspire to make a quietly kinetic pocket happen. The music video is all vibe and shadow, only revealing each musician as needed to keep all eyes and ears focused on the words and melody, which are absolutely worth listening to. Fans of top-tier singer-songwriters will find a lot to like here.

“Say What You Like”

 
Stream/download “Say What You Like” Here

Pre-order/pre-save the album Here

“Say What You Like” finds Paisley wrestling with past friends’ or lovers’ opinions of him, all backed up by a lightly funky rhythm with a slightly country tinge not seen since the early days of J.J. Cale’s lo-fi productions. “When something important disappears from your life, your imagination is sometimes called upon to fill the gaps,” Paisley says. “You could fill another universe with all the things people imagine other people are saying or thinking about them.” Featuring Jurvanen and Christine Bougie on guitars, Don Kerr on drums, Felicity Williams on harmonies, and Darcy Yates on bass, “Say What You Like” is a welcome introduction to what the future holds for Paisley, his songs, and his sound.

Say What You Like is Paisley’s first release since 2018’s Starter Home which landed on The New Yorker’s Ten Best Albums of the Year and a step in a brand new direction as the first release with Paisley’s new record label Outside Music, a welcoming, Canada-based home for a Canadian artist who’s long been signed to U.S.-based labels.

Say What You Like Tracklist:
Say What You Like
Sometimes It’s So Easy
Wide Open Plain
Rewrite History
Almost
If I Wanted To
I Wanted It Too Much
Make It A Double
You Turn My Life Around
Holy Roller
Old Hometown

Though Paisley has always collaborated with topnotch Canadian musicians including luminaries like Garth Hudson, Leslie Feist, and Mary Margaret O’Hara, his records have drawn poignancy also from moments where the listener hears Paisley as he most often hears himself: unadorned and alone with his guitar. The critical response to Paisley’s sophomore release, Constant Companion, underlined this quality. MOJO, naming the album one of the top ten of 2010, found in its “rare kind of purity” evidence that “an anti-star is born.” While Rolling Stone deemed it to be a “nearly perfect singer-songwriter record,” UNCUT described it as “sure-footed and ageless…uncluttered, sad and unerringly lovely.” The “quiet and contemplative” nature of Paisley’s last record, Starter Home, continued this trend, earning it a place in The New Yorker’s top ten albums of 2018.

Doug Paisley website