Rae Spoon Was Assigned a Country Singer at Birth
Photo credit: Shannon Johnston (@me_onlylouder)
With the current discourse surrounding 2SLGBTQIA+ issues, it is incredibly easy to forget that identity is not a headline, but a heartbeat. Nuance can easily get lost in conversations where queer and trans lives are seemingly being spoken about more than they are listened to. Amid all of this, Rae Spoon’s newest Assigned Country Singer At Birth steps back into country music with quiet conviction, an act that feels at once deeply personal and inherently political, carrying with it a much needed gentle glimmer of light and warmth.
Rae Spoon is a non-binary, trans musician, songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist and author based between Toronto and Montreal, originally from Calgary. Over the past two decades, Spoon has been steadily carving spaces where vulnerability and authenticity intersect, creating and producing work that is as intimate as it is socially resonant, vital and needed. Defying easy categorization, their work spans blends of pop, folk, country, indie rock and electronic genres.
This brand new LP, set to arrive April 10 via Coax Records, is Spoon’s thirteenth solo record and marks their return to country-roots after nearly two decades. Shedding light on themes such as transness, harm reduction, disability, inclusion, religious trauma, solidarity and opposing land occupation, this deliberate return to country might initially surprise some listeners. Yet, it is precisely in the ways country music can be stretched and (re)shaped that familiar forms become expansive enough to hold these complex experiences.
“I think the way that I tackle country music is I’m kind of coming back to when I started playing it. I think now, I have more experiences with other genres and I’ve travelled a lot. So, reapproaching it, I’m kind of just bringing my whole self and all of these elements of rock, pop and electronic music,” Spoon shares.
“This time, I wanted to make it with a lot of other non-binary, trans, queer people. There’s a lot of people with different backgrounds on it. I wanted to be very careful about inhabiting any country tropes because they’re often very colonial tropes. I’m never going to stop being a white settler from Treaty 7. I know a lot of people from different backgrounds connect to country music, usually from a working class background. I collaborate with folks that I have longer relationships with like Louis Sanchez [..] and Kimmortal [...]. And a lot of it is not necessarily confined to country, but I wanted it to be something that’s about relationships.”
Photo credit: Shannon Johnston (@me_onlylouder)
In addition to the two remarkable artists Spoon highlights, collaborators such as Theodore Walker Robinson on “Hyper Country”, Cassia Hardy on “Can’t Fail Me” and many others contributed to shaping the album. In many ways, Assigned Country At Birth feels like a long exhale from after crisis, this breath of survival, especially following the 2023 album, Not Dead Yet, born from the unpredictable joy Spoon discovered navigating the medical system as a trans person dealing with cancer in a highly gendered part of their body.
“This [new] one is just as much a part of figuring out the hard times of having community. But it’s also almost like the levity. The title itself, there’s a lot of funniness in it and lightness because I feel supported. I think that’s where it comes through.”
Support, for Spoon, is not this abstract concept, but rather something embodied: this lived reality of shared care. Knowing community matters is one thing; needing them, leaning on them and trusting they will be there is another. This philosophy follows directly into the creative processes on the new LP and the music video for “Can’t Fail Me”, released earlier on January 5th.
“It’s like living in a futurism. It’s interesting when maybe [people] not from the same community or all the exact same identities actually create an environment where people can communicate and make things without feeling super shut down. Or feeling like I can bring something up if something happens.”
There is a kind of embodiment in Spoon’s work, not just sonically, but imaginatively, to hold multiple truths at once: humour alongside grief, levity alongside survival and disability alongside queerness and transness. In this newest record, ostomies can share a stage with tangy banjo tunes. And nowhere is this more striking than in the music video of “Can’t Fail Me” where Spoon floats without flailing in the cold waters of a lake in Sooke, British Columbia, near the hospital where they were institutionalized for a little over a year due to cancer surgery complications.
“I have been close to dying many times. I don’t fear death because I went so close so many times that I know where I’m going. Because of the attachment, I live in a world where I don’t know how long I’ll live, but I’m okay with that. It’s not the cliche of enjoying every day, but I think it’s good to just be able to exist. I don’t really want to make anything that doesn’t feel embodied to me or like something that I’m a part of. That’s the philosophy behind it.”
Spoon has always created work that is especially tender, unflinching, and never shies away from vulnerability through music, performance and writing. Their art has long been a reminder of everything that is profoundly human. This same rawness and honesty carries forward in some more exciting news in the form of an upcoming book, set to release Fall 2027, which reflects on navigating cancer while accessing gender-affirming services.
“I am writing a book about my healthcare experiences. Having cervical cancer as a non-binary person, it wasn’t my dream, but it had happened. It’s tracing that journey,” Spoon explains.
As well, we can expect to see Spoon back on the road this year including stops in Alberta, transforming whatever space they may inhabit into this stage for storytelling and inviting audiences to witness and be part of this embodied act of togetherness.
Rae Spoon’s new LP Assigned Country Singer At Birth is out now on Coax Records. Rae Spoon will also be playing Calgary, AB with PinkSnail and Kue Varo and the Only Hopes at Loophole, tickets available here.
Photo credit: Shannon Johnston (@me_onlylouder)