Cassia Hardy (WARES/ASKO) Releases Debut Solo Album 'In Relation' l New Music Video for “Kinistino Ave” Out Now l Premiered via Range Magazine
"On her debut solo album, the former Wares frontperson stitches together memories into a personal document of survival." - RANGE Magazine
May 23, 2025 – Edmonton, AB (amiskwacîy-wâskahikan, Treaty 6) punk/alternative artist Cassia Hardy unveils her debut solo LP In Relation today via Mint Records. A multidimensional release, the album arrives with an accompanying zine featuring lyrics, photos, and essays from prairie-based contributors, in addition to forgoing streaming platforms. To celebrate the release, Cassia will perform at Sled Island Music & Arts Festival in Calgary and host an album release show with Brock Geiger on May 24 at The Aviary in Edmonton.
The focus track, “Kinistino Ave.,” is paired with a music video shot on Super 8 camera by Hardy’s old roommate Laura La France and directed by her old Wares bandmate Matthew Gooding. The video loosely follows along Hardy’s old bike route to work at a business that no longer exists.
“The lyrics specifically reference "Sick Gladiola" by Fiver & the Atlantic School of Spontaneous Composition. Simone's lyrics seem to question if or how the prairies would be different culturally, if some of the brightest among us hadn't been motivated to escape our deeply stupid and evil government. If they were invited back for dinner, would they "turn the tables or simply embolden the toast?"
Living on the prairies, I frequently find myself thankful and overwhelmed with the interwoven beauty and culture and history to be found here. It's also true that I lose about 3-5 friends a year to Montreal or Toronto, and Vancouver before them. Of course I don't begrudge anyone, nor do I pretend to have any answers in this song, but I think about "Sick Gladiola" weekly, and about the feelings of the left and the leaving.
I do hope my far-away friends know that through our shared changes and partings, I hold them close in my heart, and whenever we meet down the road I will be thrilled to see them again and again.” — Cassia Hardy
About In Relation:
In Relation, the debut solo record from amiskwacîy-wâskahikan, T6 / 'Edmonton, AB’ songwriter Cassia Hardy (Wares, ASKO) is an acknowledgment of the weight of the past, while searching for a means to survive the present and beyond. Stories told through commanding rhythms built from synths and strings, pushed ever forward by a relentless beat, the soundtrack to taking stock of all exquisite things lost and found, recorded by Matt McKeen at Shed Sound between August 2023-2024.
Hardy expands on the physical release of the album, saying “The album will primarily exist physically as a book of lyrics, photos, and essays by contributors. The essays will serve to reinforce with analysis and prose what I try to express through song. It will serve as an artifact for those interested in supporting my music, and hopefully furthermore as an eye opener and conversation starter in the communities I visit.
For me, the album is partially an examination of my adulthood thus far in amiskwacîy. By extension, it’s an album about processing loss. I’ve been displaced from a job and from two different living situations because of greedy landlords. I’ve lost friends to suicide and to overdoses. I lost a branch of my future as a working artist to a poorly managed global pandemic, management that ratcheted the gears of imperial capitalism into overdrive and ground up entire lives and ways of life in the process. In the wake of this loss, I’ve tried to name the evils that lie at the root, and name the loves that sustain me every day.”
Opening with a fever dream recollection of transgressions captured in a voicemail, In Relation makes short work of finding an enthralling rhythm for ageless anxieties. The labour of processing friends and lovers lost, housing inequality, the work cut short by a pandemic that displaced lives and opportunities and left bodies in waiting. All of these lingering memories woven into a line upon which to thread notes of tremendous beauty.
It’s Hardy’s urgent and tender vocals that make waves rise and fall upon it, syllables soaring to the heavens only to land and dance upon the earth when drawn back. Hers is a voice like a photograph that once felt new but still holds all its beauty with time on its face. Each line is supported by gorgeous synths, kinetic guitars and lilting drums that draw on the spirit of the past as they build monuments to the future.
“But never them, that took the rent, it’s only us with one less jewel in the crown.” Hardy sings on “Empress”, released back in March. A farewell to memories of affordable artist housing and bar top regulars lost and displaced by the gears of capitalism, given the energy of a dance floor kept warm by a light that will never fade, a furious and yearning plea to have back all the things lost. Elsewhere, on “Two Houses”, the mood becomes hushed and pensive in telling of a relationship falling apart as a home becomes empty.
This is the spirit working through In Relation. The process of learning to honour the connections that have given opportunities to thrive, even in the face of pain and loss, creating a means of survival. Community and its relations are the ideals that will hold these tethers tight as we weave them around once more, driven by rhythms of great and tremendous beauty.
In Relation will be available in physical formats and Bandcamp via Mint Records on May 23, 2025.
About Cassia Hardy:
Cassia Hardy is a loudish musician and songwriter from amiskwacîy-wâskahikan, Treaty 6. As the singer/guitarist for the rock band Wares, she has performed at festivals and clubs from Dawson City to Charlottetown. Her music is voltage controlled, dreamy and deliberate, not raw but worked to a fine point.
Follow Cassia Hardy
Zine Contributors
Kyla Pascal (@hungryzine @kyla__shell) is a profoundly positive influence on the arts scene in Edmonton. Among other pursuits, she is the co-editor of the excellent Hungry Zine, a community focused zine centering radical food stories, arts and culture. She was also a fellow worker at The Empress, a venue in Edmonton that has since closed but is an important piece of history in the Edmonton music community, as detailed in Cassia Hardy's latest single "The Empress".
Rylan Kafara (@thehistoryofpunk, @keepmovingpodcast, @rylankafara) is an ethnographer and activist. As an academic and co-host on CJSR, he makes important connections between the worlds of punk music and justice for marginalized inner city communities. His positivity and enthusiasm for Cassia Hardy's project was a guiding light for her in hazy times.'