Toronto-based musician Jordaan Mason has written a lot of songs picking over what it means to feel like an outsider, most recently with their excellent 2016 album form less. Mason’s next album, Earth To Ursa Major, continues that exploration, placed against the backdrop of a world that feels increasingly harsh and chaotic. Dissonance seeps into “Why Fit?,” the album’s first single, with strings that make it sound like the song might just burst at the seams.

Mason’s voice is shaky but rings true: “Why do we still want to fit when the world just rejects us?” they sing, awkward angles trying to do their best to adhere to form. The song takes the shape of advice passed to a friend; it’s about being available to those that you love and that love you, about creating support systems for each other when they’re hard to find elsewhere. “There must be ways to find comfort in the question mark, in the no answer, in the constant dark,” Mason sings. Here’s what they have to say about their forthcoming album and new song:

My new album, Earth to Ursa Major, is a cry for help. The world feels like it’s falling apart and I feel stuck, useless, and depressed, and everyone around me seems to feel the same. It’s a collective depression, bigger than just me and my own head. It’s all around me, affecting everyone I care about, and we’re trying to be there for one another and find something to believe in and somewhere to belong. I think more than anything this album is a search for what I believe in and what I think belonging might be.

I chose the song ‘Why Fit?’ as the first single because it’s about feeling like you don’t belong and trying to comfort a friend who is feeling the same way by reminding them that you although you may not-belong, at least you not-belong together. I hope that the not-belonging of this song might make someone else feel like they do.

Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Recital For The Great Bear”
02 “Grief Poem (Everything’s Collapsing)”
03 “Another War”
04 “Why Fit?”
05 “Her Dog”
06 “Fire/Housework”
07 “It Does Not Get Better”
08 “Liturgy Part Three”
09 “Speaking In Flowers”
10 “Made And Remade Continually”
11 “It Does Not Get Better (Reprise)”
12 “Wrong In My Chest…”
13 “If I Disappear”
14 “No Wires”
15 “Earth To Ursa Major”
16 “Awl/Leather”
17 “Constructing Constellations”

Earth To Ursa Major is out 5/31. Pre-order it here.