Rebecca Foon – Black Butterflies
Today, acclaimed composer, cellist, and vocalist Rebecca Foon releases her new album, Black Butterflies, via Magnolia.
The album marks Foon’s most expansive and dream–pop–infused work yet, a luminous meditation on transformation, love, and resilience in a world poised between uncertainty and renewal.
At the heart of the album is a deep collaboration with Patrick Watson, whose ethereal presence threads through the record like light through mist. Their chemistry is captured vividly on the focus track and video, “If I Could Only See the Distant Sky,” where Watson’s radiant vocals and piano shimmer alongside Foon’s intimate voice and cello. The track creates a sonic landscape of quiet revelation, a meeting point between vulnerability and transcendence.
Directed by Yishen Wang, the evocative video, featuring Foon herself, was captured entirely on 16 mm film, lending a timeless texture and grainy intimacy to its visuals. Set against the atmospheric backdrop of Governors Island — with open landscapes, decaying structures, and shifting shadows — the footage feels both raw and tender. The limited color palette and film imperfections mirror the song’s emotional yearning, as the camera lingers on empty vistas, silhouetted trees, and moments of quiet stillness. Through its tactile aesthetic and restrained pacing, the video becomes a meditation on distance, loss, and the longing to reach something just out of view.
Recorded at her barn studio in the Laurentians and co-produced with longtime collaborator Jace Lasek, Black Butterflies showcases Foon’s evolution as a composer and vocalist. Known for her atmospheric work with Esmerine, Silver Mt. Zion, Set Fire to Flames, and Saltland, as well as her solo releases Waxing Moon and A Common Truth, Foon continues to expand her sonic palette while remaining rooted in emotional authenticity and social consciousness. With its fusion of ambient textures, cinematic arrangements, and captivating vocals, Black Butterflies invites listeners into a world of introspection, beauty, and transcendence.
The album drifts between shadow and light, weaving cello, piano, bass, minimalist beats, and Foon’s haunting vocals with the expressive violin of her sister Aliayta Foon-Dancoes. Guest appearances from Patrick Watson (vocals, piano), bassist Mishka Stein, drummer Andrew Barr, beat maker Sankara Atsilut, and vibraphonist Bruce Cawdron bring rich texture to the album’s atmospheric core.
Throughout Black Butterflies, Foon explores the tender terrain of love, loss, climate anxiety, and the deep spiritual search for meaning. The songs honour grief and beauty in equal measure — a meditation on vulnerability and resilience in an age of uncertainty and conflict. As Foon describes, “The album is about quiet resilience — the strength to feel deeply, the courage to heal, and the belief that something beautiful can still take flight.”
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