Lockimara Previews Album ‘Only Sun, Only Moon’ with Lead Single/Video “December”

New York-by-way-of-Toronto artist Lockimara– aka project mastermind Nicholas Gay– announces his sophomore album, Only Sun, Only Moon, will be released on July 24th, 2026, via Play Dead. He’s also shared the dynamic lead single “December,” guided by buzzing bass, driving drums, and a piano-led refrain; the song’s infectious melody belies the stark heartbreak of the lyrics.

Gay explains:

“This song is the most vulnerable on the album. I usually veil my emotions and life in stories and fiction, but I was going through a difficult goodbye with someone I loved in November, and I felt like it deserved the respect of honesty and candidness in expressing how I felt, even through song.”

Drawing from multiple years of upheaval, loss, and an international move, Only Sun, Only Moon finds Lockimara feeling unstable yet determined, and working through the deep sense of fear, risk, and uncertainty that comes with change.

Across the nine songs on Only Sun, Only Moon, Gay balances conflicting feelings of impatience and resignation, and the different kinds of emotions that emerge from leaning into both. In blending acoustic delicateness, experimental textures, and dance-forward electronics, Lockimara transforms influence into ingenuity to create a uniquely genre-less collection, making Only Sun, Only Moon a body of work that feels at once familiar, bold, and intensely personal.

In 2024, Gay left a job in social work in Vancouver and moved to Toronto in order to reunite with his past band members from university, looking to revive Lockimara’s live presence after years of only writing and recording. The move forced him to finally commit fully to a career in music and resulted in his 2025 debut album, A Vision Again. The striking 14-song collection was an ode to Gay’s longing to join the pantheon of his influences, which range from early obsessions like Elliott Smith, the Postal Service, and My Bloody Valentine–who compelled him to teach himself guitar and piano as a teenager, chasing their ability to make melancholy feel like relief–to later inspirations that include A.G. Cook, Spirit of the Beehive, and Imogen Heap.

A year later, he found himself moving again, this time to New York to pursue a master’s degree in music production, all as a long-term relationship came to an end. Amidst this migration and tumult, and using his continual commitment to music as a north star, Gay began to adopt new perspectives on life. The confidence and flexibility of his early twenties had been slowly fading, and he felt a deeper sense of humility and respect for his changing environments and communities.

Only Sun, Only Moon emerged out of these feelings: fear, anger, desperation, and awe all felt closer than ever before, and he was compelled to explore that musically. Gay wrote and produced the album in its entirety and performs nearly all the instrumentation himself. Through the process, he also discovered a new creative side of himself in songs that lean into a dancey, electronic pop sound that was hinted at in his prior release, but never fully realized.

Throughout Only Sun, Only Moon, Gay ambitiously melds genres to create a varied sonic terrain where every melody carries a familiar imprint, but as a whole feels fresh and bold. Sample-heavy, glitchy environments, where the hooks are the only constant (“Tastes Like”), mix with songs that combine gentle acoustics with soaring, atmospheric synths (“Every Day,” with an almost uncanny sound that’s the result of Gay reversing basically every melody he wrote, and then half-timing it).

The album’s title–and its two titular tracks–reflect a central paradox and dualism found across it. Gay wanted to explore the polarity within emotional, musical, and lyrical spectrums, and then tie each end together to make something cohesive, yet contrasting–whether it be through an A side/B side song structure, or between organic and digital, intimate and grand sounds. As such, the music and production on Only Sun, Only Moon work in tandem to conjure emotions and imagery that feel like a dream– vivid and surreal at the same time.

Lockimara ‘Only Sun, Only Moon’ album artwork

Only Sun, Only Moon Track Listing:

1. Tastes Life
2. Every Day
3. December
4. Only Moon
5. Lose Her
6. Only Sun
7. Stress
8. Heart Beat
9. Kissing You