Bye Parula, a trio of immigrants who found their musical match in Montreal, is composed of singer and bassist Loïc Calatayud-Sola (South of France), guitarist Sebastián Riquelme (Chile), and drummer Sergio D'Isanto (Italy). They became the most popular band in Canada, if only for about twenty seconds, every morning. That's when their 2023 single, “Still Got the Spirit, was broadcast across the country on CBC Radio One, whose listeners recognized the song as the opening theme for the network's flagship arts and culture program, Q with Tom Power.

“Something Out Of Nothing” reflects their growing friendship and increasingly intuitive interaction, which inspired them to broaden their aesthetic horizons while moving toward more introspective songwriting. The new album was produced by Robbie Kuster (Flore Laurentienne, Patrick Watson) and mixed by Warren Spicer (Unessential Oils, Plants and Animals) and features a team of collaborators, including Elisapie, Adèle Trottier-Rivard (Bibi Club), Morgan Moore, and François Lafontaine (Karkwa).

With the release of their second album in 2026, Bye Parula presents a mercurial mix inspired by the orchestral funk of Serge Gainsbourg, the wounded melodies of Elliott Smith, the cosmopolitan rhythms of the Talking Heads, and the artisanal R&B of Dijon, all imbued with a 1970s cinematic sensibility that blurs the line between sunny, fuzzy fantasy and urban sophistication.

This free and relaxed approach is immediately apparent in the first tracks of the album, linked by a common theme. “I Don't Know” and “KISSBURN,” with their swirling energy, falsetto choruses, and wah-wah guitar solos, plunge us into the heart of a disco seduction: the first track is sung from the perspective of someone who is being made almost uncomfortable advances by a stranger in love; the second takes the perspective of the determined suitor who relentlessly pursues his goal.

The hedonistic sounds of their second album can't mask the distress lurking beneath the surface: this album massages your shoulders with music while punching you in the gut with its lyrics. “English isn't my mother tongue,” explains Calatayud, "so on our first album, I was shy and tried to complicate things to make myself feel smart, in a way. And Robbie said to me, ‘No, you have to be simpler than that. You have to go for the emotion.’ I think that helped me a lot: knowing that I could just write simple, honest lyrics. It changed the way I wrote the lyrics for the second album." "

Naturally, Something Out of Nothing’s most dramatic moments are also the most nakedly personal. On “Orange Blossom”, Calatayud pays tribute to his great-grandmother, who lived to 101, and whose spirit of perseverance continues to guide him through his own darkest hours—like, the one chronicled on “Burning Down the House,” a post-breakup elegy that he calls “the hardest song for me to write.” On both tracks, Calatayud belts out the choruses with such unrestrained intensity, you can practically see the tears welling up in his eyes.

Meanwhile, the eerie Radiohead-esque atmosphere of “Home” draws us into the moment where Calatayud’s soul-crushing morning commute to his day job—a total of 1.5 hours on the Metro combined with an hour of walking, to be exact—led to a full-blown existential crisis, as a creeping homesickness had him questioning whether he wanted to stay in Canada. Likewise, the meditative Spanish-sung folk ballad “Miedo de olvidar” was inspiried by all three members missing their moms, all of whom live far from the band’s Montreal home base.

But perhaps the greatest gauge of Bye Parula’s increased confidence can be found in Something Out of Nothing’s most vulnerable song. In contrast to the polyrhythmic mojo heard throughout the record, “Needed” is strikingly simple: a hypnotic acoustic hymn that centres around a single lyric—”I don’t want to talk about it/ playing another little game with you, my love/ they say it’s only a matter of time”—that Calatayud repeats over the course of five minutes, his tone turning gradually more unsettled with each pass. The song was written collectively as D'Isanto was reeling from a difficult break-up with a partner, and for a group of guys who were barely knew each other when they first started playing together in 2020, “Needed” is a testament to the blood-pact bond they now share as bandmates, and as close friends who can lean one another in times of trouble.

Bye Parula - Bandsintown

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