Fernie’s here, and he’s finally ready. At 26 years old, the Montreal singer has gone international: fighting back his doubts and embracing his history, transforming seasons of pain into unflinching, cinematic R&B. Now signed to Secret City Records—after catching the ear of Patrick Watson—Hopeless Dreams is the proof that this exciting new talent here to stay, singing dark songs that light up the night.

“These are my stories, our stories,” Fernie says. Sad stories, hard stories, memories of heartbreak and hurt. In 2021, the musician self-released his breakthrough project, Aurora—propelling him onto global stages, including Osheaga, le Festival d’été de Québec, The Great Escape (UK), MaMA Festival (France) and SIM São Paulo (Brazil). Hopeless Dreams is a kind of “prequel” EP, he explains—an A-side to Aurora’s B—exploring where Fernie came from and how those stories changed him. Across these seven songs, “there’s no holding back,” he says, as Fernie confesses it all: honest, brutal, “but beautiful because it’s art.”

Fernie was born in Brazil but grew up in Montreal, adopted into a home that spoke English, Portuguese, French and German. It was a difficult and often alienating childhood, yet Fernie found an escape in vocal classes—taking pleasure as a teacher taught him to reshape and reimagine songs by Justin Bieber and the Black Eyed Peas. Before long, he was writing his own tunes about prom and high-school cliques, but he was dissatisfied with his first studio experiments: Fernie had a vision he didn’t have the tools to fulfill. After graduating from high-school, the singer found himself in an in-between of numbness and depression. By age 20, he had given up music altogether: he was living with his mom, working at a dép, when—at a party one night—he met the producer Samant (Samaether). Their bond was instant and profound: soon the pair were collaborating on music, founding the West Island collective Kids From The Underground, crafting Aurora as a proud debut. Fernie had gone from giving-up on life to dreaming of the future, channelling his love of Frank Ocean, Adele and movie soundtracks into a new, expressive sonic landscape.

Aurora’s bewildering success brought not just opportunities but healing, and Hopeless Dreams is the sound of a singer who is confident enough to revisit the worst moments of his past, from childhood trauma to extractive relationships, using a sound that’s both lush and austere. At times, like on the silken “Valhalla,” Fernie’s voice is carried by a rich, soulful accompaniment (with strings composed by Charles Guy); elsewhere, as on the devastating “Bones & All,” the songs’ arrangements have been stripped nearly bare. “Pain” is a sumptuous ballad produced by Patrick Watson—the fellow Montrealer discovered Fernie after falling in love with the then-unreleased Aurora. Watson invited Fernie to his studio and became a mentor to him: they swapped guest appearances at 2022’s Festival d’été de Québec and M for Montreal, and the acclaimed singer-songwriter was the one to bring him to Secret City.

Throughout Hopeless Dreams, Fernie’s gritty R&B songs feel like a recognition that hardship doesn’t need to lock you away: it can be the basis for a sensuous, outpouring love. “It’s not a hand reaching out for help,” he says, his grave face breaking into a smile. “It’s a hand reaching out to other people, so they don’t feel alone. That’s universal. That’s for everyone.”