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May 30, 2024 By Mark Redfern Photography by Caroline Desilets

Unessential Oils is the project of Warren Spicer, singer/songwriter for Montreal trio Plants and Animals. Unessential Oils’ self-titled debut album is due out this Friday via a Secret City. Ahead of that Spicer has shared one last pre-release single from it, “Overwhelmed and Unprepared,” via a music video. Watch and listen below, followed by three other recent singles from the album.

Spicer had this to say about the song in a press release: “This song is really about the death of my parents and the birth of my children. The stories in the verses are the kinds of things that live on the surface of our conscience while the real meaning of the song is like the hidden emotions that live underneath. In death and birth we become overwhelmed and feel unprepared, we become very instinctual and pure. This is how life works, very profound experiences and mundane experiences are always combined and layered. The long instrumental section at the end is a spiritual movement, my way of connecting with the powers that flow through.”

Read our 2016 interview with Plants and Animals on Waltzed In From the Rumbling.

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