Great Lake Swimmers Release Split 7-inch with Picastro

The collaborative effort features a trio of new songs

BY Allie GregoryPublished Mar 6, 2020

Before they embark on a joint acoustic tour of the U.K. and Europe together later this month, Great Lake Swimmers' Tony Dekker and Picastro's Liz Hysen have collaborated on a split 7-inch record — a double single featuring previously unreleased tracks from both artists.

The record comes with one track from Great Lake Swimmers, "Getting to the Heart of It," as well as two new Picastro songs, "Where Are You" and "Thursday."

The physical release comes via Harbour Songs on translucent purple vinyl and will be available for purchase on tour, while the digital release comes today via (weewerk).

For Dekker's part, he participated in one of Pondercast's recent Toronto-based events, where he used their Night Journal to help write the lyrics for "Getting to the Heart of It."

"It was an unusual way of working," Dekker said of the writing process in a statement, "But [it was] ultimately rewarding in that it involved listening deeply and intensely to the sounds of the night, and responding to a series of enlightening audio prompts."

Here's what Hysen had to say about composing her tracks for the release:

I had some people very close to me pass recently and the songs were a way for me to conjure them when I missed them. Grief keeps hitting me in waves and I didn't even plan the songs, they just sort of happened but in the end, were great coping mechanisms for me. Hopefully, they are for others too.

Dekker's latest release was Great Lake Swimmers' 2018 record, The Waves, the Wake. Hysen most recently announced plans for a reissue of her 2019 album Exit.

Both artists' upcoming tour dates can be found here.

Listen to all three songs from the 7-inch below.

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