Uh Oh

In 2023, while the singer/songwriter/composer was touring in support of the previous years Better in the Shade, Patrick Watson woke up after a show in Atlanta and couldnt speak. It turned out that he had hemorrhaged a vocal cord while singing. Uncertain, per his doctors, if hed ever be able to speak or sing again, he continued to work on music in the months to follow and eventually had the idea to invite some of his favorite singers to perform the songs he was writing. With Watson slowly regaining limited use of his voice after several months of silence, the resulting set of hushed chamber pop, Uh Oh, consists of two solo songs and nine duets, each with a different guest vocalist. Using only two microphones and a laptop, Watson traveled to places like Paris, Mexico City, and Los Angeles to collect these performances, and he later mixed the album himself (with help on a few tracks by Rob Heaney) at his studio in Montreal. The album opens with "Silencio," featuring Parisian electro-pop artist November Ultra, who gives an aria-like performance of the songs mournful piano intro. Watson takes over the lead on a more rhythmic, fully arranged second section with: "I lost my voice cause I talked too loud/Like an old friend that aint hangin around." The song goes on to explain that he couldnt stop making stuff up in his head. It should be noted that "fully arranged" in the context of Uh Oh may mean guitar, drums, piano, modular synths, and backing vocalists, as on this song, or, additionally, bass, strings, horns, woodwinds, and percussion, as on many of the rest, but the album rarely if ever becomes lushly symphonic or rousingly poppy. Instead, its volume is limited -- ultimately to artful, intimate effect -- to center the songwriters raspy, sometimes strained delivery. The most assertive track by far here is the clubby electronica entry "Ami imaginaire," featuring Quebecs Klo Pelgag, which uses processing and effects to aid in their vocal interplay. In keeping with the rest of the album, however, even that song would be described as eerie or melancholy rather than bright or boisterous. Some of the other guests here include alt-folk maven Martha Wainwright (on the bittersweet, quasi-acoustic "House on Fire"), Portuguese singer MARO (on the Iberian-inflected, acoustic guitar-based "The Wandering," with its spacey close-harmony backing vocals), and Juno-winning Quebecois singer Charlotte Cardin (on "Gordon in the Willows," a song so ethereal as to be evanescent). Uh Oh closes with "Ça va," a French chanson with Paris native Solann that pays tribute to love and music. Perhaps the most notable quality of Uh Oh is that, while its backstory is conspicuous in its lyrics and title, the album doesnt play like an accommodation or something thats lacking, even if its quietly haunting, dramatic character was born of necessity. ~ Marcy Donelson