From her home in the BC mountains, Canadian singer-songwriter Ruby Waters rattles off the definition of the phrase “to suppress.”
“It’s the act of holding back or preventing something from developing, functioning, being seen or being expressed,” she reads. It’s a definition she’s found deeply relatable over the last couple years.
“A lot of that is what the album is about: hanging on to old habits and stopping myself from becoming the best version of myself,” Waters explains. “It’s also about the pressures of being seen by the world and wanting to hide like a little crab underwater in a safe little shell. Or the opposite, being weighed down almost underwater by suppressed emotions.”
Waters poured those feelings into her sophomore album SUPPRE$$IONS (out via Wet Records). Written mostly from this same house in the mountains, the smokey voiced singer dives into the dark waters of how her vices and the pressures of the world began to overwhelm her. She takes it literally on the album cover, wearing a collection of fishing lures as earrings and nose rings, and being lifted by a hook out of the water on the back cover.
“I’ve been dealing with addiction and mental health issues for a very long time,” she admits. “This album stems from wanting to change or being in limbo between wanting to change and building up the courage to do so.” She states, “It’s an acceptance album. Accepting all of these feelings, wants, and needs instead of suppressing them.”
Written and recorded with her longtime collaborators Sam Jackson Willows (The Beaches, A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie), Harper (Burna Boy, Russ), TJ Whitelaw (John Legend, Syd) and mastering engineer Alec Ness (Alabama Shakes, Sam Smith) over the last two years, her 20-song opus honestly admits to many of the distractions and habits that she’s used to escape her real life: sex, drugs, nature, and rock’n’roll. The candor comes with maturity as the artist details these crutches alongside her path away from some of them.
“There are some deeper songs and some more fun ones, all mostly fueled with vices,” she explains. Caught in the middle is album opener “SAME MISTAKES,” a vulnerable, dreamy prologue that sets the tone for Waters’ story.
“I’m talking about being a piece of shit and not trying hard enough,” she details. The hypnotic, soulful track recounts the loop she’s been in: half-hearted attempts at changing her life that lead her right back to where she started. On a song like “OFTEN,” she takes the cyclical nature of these experiences literally in the music, using sonics to replicate the experience of waking up from a bender and feeling your brain loop with regrets.
Singles “GET A GRIP” and “WET T-SHIRT” delve into a similar vice: sex. “WET T-SHIRT” explores how she has used physical connection to cope. She describes the grunge-y, guitar and drum driven track as a “heavy, erotic, fantasy track,” and it has come accompanied with a video of women having fun on dirt bikes. While that track offers the fun aspect of the vice, “GET A GRIP” is the reality check. The spiralling lyrics are accompanied by a synth-y dream pop sound that makes the song float.
The relatable financial limitations that can keep a person feeling stuck is addressed on “PAY AS YOU GO.” It’s about the struggle everyone is fucking feeling in this economy,” she says. It’s a life Waters is familiar with, having spent her early adult life couch-surfing while making money as a busker in the streets of Toronto.
“I’m still working towards the dream of paying off my family’s debt and to finally have a farm or something one day,” she adds. That dream is further detailed on “RUNAWAY,” where she expresses how much she wants to pay back her mom for all that she gave her. Waters’ mom serves as one of her biggest inspirations, having been a singer herself. “I remember being in the back of the Legion all the time or in bars when I was really young watching her sing,” Waters recalls of her childhood in Ontario.
Waters is well on her way to accomplishing that. Busking led to her discovery, and she released two EPS — 2019’s Almost Naked and 2020’s If It Comes Down to It — to critical acclaim. The latter received a Juno Award nomination for Alternative Album of the Year at the 2022 ceremony. She’s become a successful touring act along the way, touring with heroes like Shakey Graves and Dallas Green and playing Osheaga Music Festival.
Following the release of her 2024 debut album What’s the Point, Waters has pinpointed the sound that feels truest to her. It’s a bit of nostalgia with raw acoustic moments that showcase both her strong songwriting and powerful voice. Musically, she sees herself somewhere between the sounds of her two favorite artists: Rihanna and Nirvana.
“I feel like I fall somewhere in the middle of a lit, sexually powerful, beautiful, strong woman vibe, and a more subdued, elusive, rocky, lil’ angry boy vibe,” she explains. “I feel like I'm battling between those two within myself often”. Waters knows that an even bigger battle is within herself. With SUPPRE$$IONS, she’s had a stand-off with those vices. Now, she’s aiming to lay down her weapons and see what happens next.
“All this changes when I let these songs out,” she affirms. “I can release.”
