Kylie Fox and Nikki Gallant have shared the new single created as part of the 2021 Canadian Songwriter Challenge.
The Canadian Songwriter Challenge is now in its seventh year. Music PEI’s version, funded in part by Bell Media, was created to bring artists together from across Canada to co-write with PEI artists. Nine provincial music industry associations partnered with Music PEI in 2021 to create nine teams of songwriters.
New Brunswick singer songwriter Kylie Fox was chosen to participate in the 2021 version of the Challenge and was teamed up with Island musician Nikkie Gallant and producer Dan Ledwell (Jenn Grant, Good Lovelies, The Once) to write, record, and produce two new tracks in as many weeks.
Girls’ Room was released last month.
In announcing the single, both Fox and Gallant described the song as being far removed from their individual songwriting projects to date. From the beginning of her career, Fox’s songwriting has been largely shaped around a firm acoustic foundation (as demonstrated on her most recent album Green) that has evolved more recently through live performances with a backing band. And while Gallant’s latest, Subtle Motions, taps pop influences with greater intent, it never quite steps into the full-blown pop mode heard on Girls’ Room.
“This song is drastically out of character for both of us to release,” they said. “The result is an energetic pop-track, voiced by two women with a romantic history who attend a club with their prospective male partners, only to meet each other on the dance floor and pick up where things left off in the restroom.
“With bathrooms everywhere breaking the gender binary, we do want to reaffirm that all genders are valid, and gender-free restrooms are the ideal. The ‘girls’ room’ referenced in the song is a metaphor for the male gaze being absent from the equation, as this attraction isn’t performative.”
Listen to all the songs created as part of the Music PEI’s version of the Canadian Songwriter Challenge.
