In 2018, the Toronto collective Bernice released their sophomore album Puff LP: In the air without a shape. This is a band that’s malleable — all from jazz backgrounds, they meld genres from R&B to new age to art-pop, and just as much as they function as their own band Bernice’s members play with a wide array of other artists like Andy Shauf, Lido Pimienta, and Beverly Glenn Copeland. Puff LP, as a result, was a deeply idiosyncratic work, a crystallization of various musical endeavors being tied together while also defying easy categorization. For those of us who came across it, Puff LP solidified Bernice as a band to keep an eye on.

It’s been a few years now, but they’re gearing up to release that album’s successor. Bernice’s new album is called Eau de Bonjourno, and it’ll be out in March. Arising out of writing and recording sessions in Canada and then in Brooklyn — with multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily serving as producer — Eau de Bonjourno is a collection that “openly plays with the shape of a pop song,” as bandleader Robin Dann put it. “We have an impulse to open doors that you might not expect, and that translates from groove to melody to lyric,” Dann continued in a statement. “Phil [Melanson] and Thom [Gill] have this strong aversion to building a beat that sits there in front of you and does exactly what you expect it to do. We come out of so many musical traditions and are trying to make something that’s not a direct descendent of any of them. We’re trying to make the music that feels like us right now.”

Along with the announcement, Bernice have shared a lead single called “Groove Elation.” “I think of this song as a ripple through many decades of a life,” Dann said of the song. “A silver goblet shines on pink woolen stripes. Maybe this is enough! Maybe we have all that we need to groove. Whether you slept well, stayed up, spoke up or stayed quiet, you’re here now and we should ‘groove it for sure.’ Let us take you there: floating on the surface of a loving feeling.” As the title and Dann’s description suggest, Bernice allow themselves to be just a bit poppier on “Groove Elation” while losing none of the creative little twists that have characterized their past music. Check it out below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Groove Elation”
02 “It’s Me, Robin”
03 “Big Mato”
04 “Dry River Bed”
05 “Lone Swan”
06 “Empty Cup”
07 “Personal Bubble”
08 “Your Beautiful House”
09 “Infinite Love”
10 “We Choose You”

Eau de Bonjourno is out 3/5 via Telephone Explosion and figureeight.