Clay Hazey has released his new EP The Things I’m Not, out today, July 2, with a release party set for tomorrow, July 3, at Bar L’Escogriffe. The Montreal songwriter works in contemporary country and western, and the new record leans on restraint and performance rather than studio polish.
The Things I’m Not was recorded at Kent Kataoka’s Ridgeside Sound Studios and tracked without a click, a choice made to prioritize feel and emotional immediacy over technical precision. Hazey and Kataoka experimented with tone and texture across the sessions, adding new instrumentation and keeping in elements that might normally be edited out. The approach fits Hazey’s stated preference for sincerity over polish, and for treating imperfection as part of the meaning rather than something to remove.
The writing centres on love, commitment, and the tension between accepting yourself and trying to improve, asking which parts of a person change over time and which stay fixed as relationships deepen. Hazey has described these songs as sitting in a more reflective space than his earlier work.
The EP runs across five tracks: “The Things I’m Not,” “Another Couple Miles,” “robin’s egg moon,” “Drag Me Home Again,” and “tulips.” It was made with a close group of collaborators, with contributions from Kento Kataoka, Peter Colantonio, Brydone Charlton, Neil Robinson, and Clay Upex across instrumentation, performance, and production.
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