“Are you ready to come into my world?” Dorothea Paas asks on Autumn Roses, the lead single from her latest album, Think of Mist, out this fall on Telephone Explosion Records. It’s an invitation extended with equal parts sincerity and slyness, delivered over a casually propulsive groove and layers of transcendent harmony. The only option is surrender. 

Think of Mist is Paas’s sophomore album, following 2021’s Polaris-longlisted Anything Can’t Happen - “one of the most stirring and emotionally resonant break-up albums of recent years” (Uncut). Widely praised for its emotional resonance and lush sonic landscape, Anything showcased the talent that has made Paas a fixture of Toronto’s music scene for over a decade - both as the leader of her own band, and as a vocalist and guitarist for a constellation of groups including U.S. Girls, Jennifer Castle and Shabason & Krgovich. 

Think of Mist is an instruction: a playful guided meditation for the listener as they enter 32 thoroughly cohesive, yet surprise-filled, minutes of music. On this album, as on Anything, Paas’s lyrics braid emotional vulnerability with subtle, disarming wit; her crystal-clear voice, honed in childhood opera choir and church bands, forms a counterpoint with her experimental, autodidactic approach to instrumentation, which can travel from folk to math rock in a single song. (Paas came of age as a guitarist in a small-town DIY scene rife with heavy shredders like Paul Saulnier of P.S. I Love You, who contributes guitar and bass to this album.)