Awake & Dreaming Release “Underwater”: Surface or Sink

Waterloo, ON, September 18, 2026. Awake & Dreaming release “Underwater” today, the fifth single from their debut album Inevitable, out October 16, 2026. It is the quiet one. After the riot chant of “Cold Shoulder,” the Waterloo, Ontario four-piece turn inward: a 2 a.m. self-talk session about the thing that is dragging you down, and the moment you either let it go or let it swallow you whole. The single lands on the second night of the band’s ten-city Ontario and Quebec tour, which runs through October 10.

What the song is about

“Underwater” is about depression: looking back, and feeling the floor give way. It opens too late to phone a friend. “I break or I learn to bend. 2am I talk to myself.” The chorus makes a promise, “There’ll be no more tears on my shadow,” then names the choice underneath it: “Let it go or let it swallow you whole.” The image the song hangs on is a whale floating too far underwater, something massive and alone, searching, calling out in a code nobody hears. The second verse is the self-talk answering itself: “It’s okay to take up space. Meditate. Just be in your bones. Call them home.” Surface or sink. The song does not tell you which.

How it is built

There is no drop. The song floats. Sasha Kristoff’s voice sits up close over piano, with textured guitar and drums underneath; the choruses arrive at 0:55 and 2:01. Then, from 2:41 to the end, the words stop and the water rises: piano, guitar and drums carry the song out for more than a minute. Where “Cold Shoulder” earned its release with a drop at 2:20 and a chant, “Underwater” withholds it. The mechanism is submersion, not impact. 3:48, F# major.

Where it sits on the record

“Underwater” is track 6 of 10 on Inevitable, placed directly after “Cold Shoulder”: the record’s loudest public moment followed by its most private one. The band calls that duality, and it is what the name means: two states that are not supposed to coexist and do anyway, present in the moment while imagining what could be. For Sasha Kristoff, who lives with Type 2 narcolepsy, it is also literal. The songs hold conflicting ideas and ask you to sit with both. On the album’s arc, “Rewire” (the single that followed on October 2) is the dopamine loop, and its bridge exposes the vulnerabilities being preyed on; “Old Ghosts” and “Underwater” are where those vulnerabilities are lived through.

“Underwater” was written by Sasha Kristoff and Stefan Schneider, produced by Awake & Dreaming, mixed by Jay Dufour, the 9-time Juno Award winner behind July Talk, Finger Eleven and Billy Talent, and mastered by João Carvalho (Rush, The Tragically Hip, Alexisonfire). Carvalho mastered the whole album and Dufour mixed nine of its ten tracks (“Old Ghosts” keeps its original mix by Ryan Dugal). The single arrives as the album mix, exactly as it will appear on Inevitable.

The band is Sasha Kristoff (vocals, piano), Stefan Schneider (guitar, synth), Phil Lee (bass) and Ryan Dugal (drums). Their singles to date have earned more than 50 press reviews across 11 countries and 280K+ Spotify streams. The week of release, CBC News ran a video feature on the tour and CBC Radio One’s The Morning Edition in Kitchener-Waterloo had the band in studio; the band’s music is in the CBC catalogue. “Underwater” went into rotation at CFRU 93.3 FM in Guelph on release day. The Inevitable Tour opened September 17 in Windsor and ran through Guelph, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Drummondville and London to The Rivoli in Toronto on October 10, with a special-guest night for Blue Rodeo in Owen Sound on October 8, before the album is released to the world on October 16. Limited vinyl, signed by Sasha Kristoff and hand-numbered, is in the store.