Montreal's Alexia Avina -- who also plays in Best Fern, the duo responsible for the dreamiest version of "Take On Me" ever -- shares the beautiful and gently cathartic new album that we badly needed right now. Betting on an Island is an ethereal experimental-folk-pop meditation, with an inviting soft-focus glow that soothes and enchants, as Avina's exquisite vocals and lush but airy instrumentation (and the occasional fleeting but incredibly evocative sample) transport us someplace warm and dreamlike. Alexia tells us about spending the past 3 years with these songs as she's evolved as an artist, and how for her they've acted "sometimes as a burden, other times as a source of relief and renewal":

The process of working truthfully to a retroactive vision has been difficult, as I am constantly changing all the time. I've learned so much personally since writing these songs and have expanded myself so much musically since playing them, but I feel that both of these growths are traceable back to this album and its exploration of naivety.

Listen to Betting on an Island below + pick up the limited cassette, which comes with "a small shell from the pacific ocean and sage handpicked and dried from the angeles mountains", here.