Winnipeg’s Alexa Dirks, better known as Begonia, has released “Deep Red Cherry Night,” another single from her third full-length album Fantasy Life, due October 24 via Birthday Cake Records. The thirteen-track collection was written in Los Angeles and recorded back home during winter.
The new song finds Dirks in unfamiliar territory. After years of mining heartbreak and longing, she’s turned her attention to contentment. “It’s about all the beautiful mundane and magical moments that I started to notice when I finally found someone I could rest my trust in,” she says. “This song is a snapshot of what that other side looks like to me now.”
Fantasy Life continues Dirks’ working relationship with production duo deadmen (Matt Peters and Matt Schellenberg), who have shaped her sound since the beginning. “There’s a spirit of freedom to this record that was such a big part of the songwriting sessions I had in LA with deadmen,” Dirks notes. “I spent a little over a month in total with them writing this record every day and it’s the most RIGHT in songwriting sessions that I’ve ever felt.”
That ease shows in the music. Dirks has always possessed a theatrical streak, building a persona that oscillates between whimsy and darkness, comfort and provocation. Her performances have earned comparisons to pop spectacle, though her lyrics maintain an intimate, confessional quality. The balance has worked: since launching her solo career in 2017 with the EP Lady in Mind, she’s earned two JUNO nominations and twice made the Polaris Music Prize shortlist.
The album’s themes reflect Dirks’ penchant for contradictions. She describes it as being about the mundane and magical, delusional and hopeful, thrilling and crushing. Previous singles “Hotter Than The Sun” and “So High” have already been released.
Begonia plays a listening party in Toronto on October 4, then embarks on a lengthy European tour supporting The Bros Landreth starting February 13, 2026. The run includes over thirty dates across ten countries, wrapping April 25 in London.
Photo – Calvin Lee Jospeh
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