Yes, the new Chanel Beads record is called Your Day Will Come (2026), which is the exact same title as the project's previous LP, Your Day Will Come (2024). As a press release notes, the repetition is about challenging record industry norms, but it's also a way of evoking "the duel between certainty and doubt" that mastermind Shane Lavers wrestled with during the record's creation.Or, to put that last part more plainly, the difference is a matter of intonation: "I'm Ron Burgundy?" versus "I'm Ron Burgundy." So, which punctuation is Your Day Will Come (2026)?Like its predecessor, the new album was recorded in Lavers' small Brooklyn studio with the help of his frequent group of collaborators including singer Maya McGrory, violinist Zachary Paul and engineer Al Carlson. The mix of live and digital instrumentation echoes the current crop of art coming out of Copenhagen by artists like ML Buch, Fine and Astrid Sonne; however, there's a swing and swagger here that betrays its American origins.For his part, Lavers insists it's all just folk music — and based on the skeletal acoustic arrangements that undergird many of the tracks, it's easy to see why. Maybe it's a way for him to hide behind the characters in his songs. Real or imagined, or some blurred version of both, these are people with something dark hanging over them, who are looking for a way out. That's what seems to be going on, at least; Lavers' lyrics remain as inscrutable as ever.Chanel Beads started life as mostly audio collage with snippets of voice floating in and out. Now, perhaps in response to the difficulties Lavers had performing the hushed bedroom whispers of his previous releases live, he's pushed vocals to the forefront. It helps gives the records a pop veneer that belies the degraded audio clips and found sounds that emerge between the earworms.What Your Day Will Come doesn't do is really break through any of the mystery Lavers has crafted around Chanel Beads: a solo project, built by a community, that sounds European but is very much American. He remains elusive in interviews, seemingly disinterested in playing industry games, while enjoying the (relative) fruits of being a runaway star of the underground.Even trying to identify who is singing at any one time remains a bit of a riddle. Both Lavers and McGrory, as well as Anastasia Coope and Bella Litsa, are credited as singers on the singsong-y "Song for the Messenger," for example, a track I would've pegged as having just a single digitally processed voice.In many ways, Your Day Will Come is the ideal follow-up for a break-out moment: a confident offering that provides more of the same, but better.
Wavelength
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