Canadian soul-R&B artist Ty Richard is back with his new single, “Restart” featuring Liv Marie.
Slicing through with a superbly polished sound, gloriously minimalistic arrangement, sparse mix, and brilliant engineering, this superb duo — featuring Liv Marie — is a preview into the Toronto-area artist’s forthcoming 2021 LP, In Time & Grace, and follows previous tour and studio collaborations with Brooklyn dream-pop outfit Cigarettes After Sex and Australian soul duo Breathe.
With flowing melodies, the song’s seamless structure takes audiences through a gamut of scenes that support the silky, studied, and sculptured vocal textures and melodies that make up this brilliant work.
The lyrics, though introspective and sometimes fairly personal, immerse listeners deep within this duo’s universe — a tango of promises and regrets that amount to a compelling, rich, and vast pop song that is sure to go around the airwaves.
“Restart” expresses the notion of returning to and being accepted by God after turning away from him and his faithful love. Richard does a brilliant job at passing a smart, deep, heartfelt, philosophical prayer for a beautiful love song.
Then again, maybe it just confirms the writing talent that accompanies Richard’s believable introspect and vocal talent, and how the two intertwine.
Check out “Restart” below, and find out more about Ty Richard via our mini-interview.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
Hey Canadian Beats, I’m Ty Richard: Toronto R&B artist and producer, back with you guys for a second time with my new single, Restart.
Tell us about the recording process behind the world record?
The recording/creating process was pretty funny, actually. For the longest time I had a different chorus for the song, but I never really liked it. It sounded kind of lame and melodically cheesy. I had this chorus for about four months, always trying to write something different, but with no luck. I was running out of time. Eventually, the shoot date for the music video came, and I still had no new chorus. So I prayed. As I sat in my studio with the project opened, I prayed “Lord, I’m not happy with this chorus, and I only have 3 hours until the music video shoot. If there is any possible chorus that is better than what I have, can you please help me create it?” Then I just started freestyling (again) with the mic on, and new lyrics and melodies started to flow out. God had given me a whole new chorus. I wrote new lyrics with new melodies, and recorded it within the hour I had to leave.
That work of God was a cool reminder that:
1.) God cares about his children.
2.) God even cares about the little things like a song chorus, if it will bring Him glory.
3.) I need to remember to include God in all things, even my creative process.
4.) My life and music were given to me to glorify God, and not myself.
What was the highlight of 2020?
The highlight of 2020 was also the hardest thing about 2020: God revealing things to me about the state of my heart.
He’s showing me that I don’t trust him enough, and have been trying to figure out life by myself, independent from his help. He’s showing me that I have idolized entertainment, movies, music, social media, and working out, more than spending time with him in his Word and in prayer. He’s showing me that church is more essential than I have ever realized and that God literally designed the church so that the community could gather and worship God together, pray together, celebrate together, mourn together, laugh together, and strengthen one another. What a beautiful thing.
This has been a rough year of spiritual pruning. And pruning always hurts. But with Christ, pruning always bears more fruit.
What do you hope to accomplish in your career in 2021?
Looking forward to 2021, we shall see what God has in store for me. I plan on finishing my undergrad (Bachelor in Church Music) and would love to be back performing. I also plan on releasing more singles before a full-length record.
Is there anyone out there you’d like to collaborate or open/close a concert with in the future?
Regarding live collabs, I would love to work with Sade, or re-unite 2003’s rap group Preachaholicz for a show!