We have been following Boyhood, the bedroom pop project of rural Ontario musician Caylie Runciman, for years now. After emerging from Ottawa’s punk scene more than a decade ago, she went on to release a series of wonderfully offbeat DIY records, including her 2022 album My Dread, which was on heavy rotation around here. More recently, “A Grand Time” landed in our Best Songs of 2025 list. The track will appear on her newly announced album, I’ll Dream InStead, due September 23, 2026 via Hand Drawn Dracula.
Written, performed, recorded and engineered entirely by Runciman, I’ll Dream InStead was largely created from her bed during a rural winter, surrounded by old drum machines and what she describes as “a crappy old Casio.” “This album stemmed from a feeling of desperation,” she explains. That feeling seems to run through its tough guitars, analog feedback, deadpan verses and choppy soundscapes, but the record is also presented as a kind of rebirth, shaped by someone trying to find herself again while everything around her was changing.
The announcement also comes with the album’s opening track, “Loner”, a dusty and immediately hypnotic introduction to Boyhood’s latest transformation. It is quite a departure from the softer pull of “Stroke It” or “Don’t You Dare”, leaning instead into a grittier sound built from cycling drum machines, weathered synths and flashes of guitar distortion. Still, it is just as captivating. Runciman turns isolation into its own private world, casually observing that “People come, and people go . . . but I’m a loner out here.” Withdrawn without ever feeling lifeless, the track captures the strange freedom that can emerge when nobody else is around. Boyhood has also shared an accompanying video, which you can watch below.
- Fine announces Jazz Dreams with new single “Everything in the shade” - September 2, 2026
- Teilz unleashes “tiger” to tease her debut album Come to Mommy - August 29, 2026
- cutty keep things nocturnal and off kilter on “Shadows In the Street” - August 28, 2026
