BEGONIA
Saturday September 14
6:15pm-7:15pm
TD Stage

As Begonia, Alexa Dirks is bold, brazen with her florid, surprising pop that is tempered with sensitivity and wisdom. Dirks’ first solo output with her 2017 debut EP, Lady in Mind, was well-received, being listed on NPR’s 10 Artists You Need To Know in 2017 and “Juniper” reached #1 on the CBC 2 Music Charts. Noisey wrote that, “Begonia has one of Canada’s most extraordinary voices, and thankfully she uses it to obliterate the misery from this world one live performance at a time.” NPR wrote that Begonia is “the place where where synth-pop meets old soul and scrappy meets sexy.” Whether it’s learning to come into her own or processing a brutal heartbreak, Dirks’ intimate lyrics and audacious sound allows for her audience to relate to the messiness of life with an honesty that is refreshing. On her latest single “The Light,” Dirks sings over soulful swells, her vocals curving around the notes of the song and making them explode as she bluntly tells us “hang up the phone and scream your name/ again, again/but I like the pain.” Who among us hasn’t wanted to rage and yell and yet curl into and find comfort in the things that brought us pain? With Begonia’s debut full length album entitled ‘Fear’ expected next year, Dirks’ leans hard into a sense of arrival. She wrote and co-produced the record with a familiar team: Matt Schellenberg and Matt Petters of Royal Canoe, along with Marcus Paquin, who has previously worked with The National, Arcade Fire and Local Natives.