Coming soonPre-order Coming soonPre-order Coming soonPre-order Coming soonPre-order

Patrick Watson turns a career-halting vocal injury into Uh Oh, a lush, guest-filled album that finds beauty in breakdowns and movement in every moment.

When Patrick Watson lost his voice in early 2023, the timing couldn’t have been worse. The Montreal art-pop visionary, known for his angelic falsetto and dreamlike compositions, woke up one morning unable to speak, let alone sing. A burst blood vessel had paralyzed his vocal cord, and doctors couldn’t say if it would ever heal. For a professional singer, that wasn’t just an “uh oh” moment. It was a full-blown crisis.

Rather than dwell in the silence, Watson pivoted. He leaned into modular synths, drew on his background scoring films, and started writing songs for other voices. That shift became Uh Oh, an album that reimagines collaboration as therapy, storytelling, and survival all at once.

Each track on Uh Oh features a guest vocalist, with Watson and his longtime bandmates Mishka Stein, Olivier Fairfield, and co-vocalist Ariel Engle (La Force) building lush, immersive backdrops around them. The cast is wide-ranging and wonderfully unpredictable. Martha Wainwright delivers one of her rawest performances in years. Charlotte Cardin brings poise and precision. Klô Pelgag, Solann, MARO, November Ultra, Hohnen Ford, and even a barista-turned-vocalist named Charlotte Oleena all leave their mark. Watson treats each voice like a character in a film, casting them not just for tone, but for emotional weight.

The songs move between aching intimacy and surreal bursts of sonic chaos. “Postcards,” with Hohnen’s fragile delivery, feels like it’s floating just above ground. “Ça va,” sung in French by Solann, drifts like a smoky breeze through old Parisian streets. “Peter and the Wolf” starts spare and skeletal before erupting into a swirl of electronic textures and haunted guitar lines. “The Wandering,” a duet with MARO, sounds like a bossa nova broadcast from the afterlife. And “Ami imaginaire,” a fever dream with Pelgag, smears ghostly vocals over a looped, pulsing beat that feels both ancient and futuristic.

To create that forward motion, Watson studied Cardi B’s “Up” for two months, focusing on how the low end and hi-hats interacted. It’s a surprising influence, but one that shaped the rhythm and movement of the entire record. Most of the tracks were recorded live with just two Schoeps microphones in rooms scattered across Montreal, New Orleans, Paris, Mexico City, and Los Angeles. Despite the global footprint, the album feels intimate and immediate, like a secret shared in passing.

Watson calls Uh Oh the culmination of everything he’s been working toward for the last two decades. Years of refining his lyricism, arranging skills, and mixing chops finally aligned. What started as a detour born from a medical emergency became his most expansive and fully realized work.

You may also like Vince's Recommendations

You may also like Vince's Recommendations

NRN

In a sea of music platforms and streaming songs...
Get the hottest releases delivered to you each week

NRN

In a sea of music platforms and streaming songs...
Get the hottest releases delivered to you each week

Want your release on NRN?

Get featured on the site and in our weekly email blast
We love great music!

Want your release on NRN?

Get featured on the site and in our weekly email blast
We love great music!