KURATED NO. 269
JUNO NOMINEE 2026
Fantasy Life by Begonia
Fantasy Life is Begonia’s third solo album
CONTENTS
No stranger to the JUNO Awards, Winnipeg singer-songwriter extraordinaire Begonia is looking for a win in the Adult Alternative Album of the Year category. The JUNO Awards show airs on Sunday, March 29 at 8pm ET and 5 pm PT
BEGONIA BLOOMING
Third solo record features flair and insight
Announcing her latest album, Fantasy Life, Begonia fearlessly promised “more risk, more complex vocals, more pop diva mania, more feeling, more truth and more fantasy”. Wouldn’t you know the seasoned artist delivers on all fronts. She’s candid, casual, brash, relatable, forthright and puts her insight to good work. It all shows up in her intimate and story-telling lyrics. Assuming various guises she uses her narratives to both explain herself to herself while inviting us to listen.
In Out of Control the 30-something singer ponders having children ( “Make a baby, watch my garden grow/ how am I supposed to choose or know?”) while in Hotter Than the Sun she roll calls various anxieties “My need for validation (led to a) / Self asphyxiation (which made me) / Up my medication”. Ultimately she concludes “So fuck all of that noise / Fuck it!”
On the album’s title track Begonia – aka Alexa Dirks – addresses fear and inadequacy but quickly acknowledges her good fortune: “But then I get out on the stage and I live the life I’ve always dreamed / and I live my fantasy life / I don’t now if I can stop / nothing I can do to top / my fantasy life.”
“I’m just laying it all out, ” she tells Toronto’s shedoesthecity. “There’s intimate moments, there’s sparkling moments, there’s dark moments, and there’s just light pop moments. I just wanted to showcase the different emotional palette.” The musical side of the relatively strong collection is a collaboration supported by fellow Winnipeggers the deadmen who helped compose and play on the songs and producing the project.
This year the 20-year music veteran brings her best work to the JUNO Awards and is in the running for Adult Alternative Album of the Year. She was passed over for a JUNO in 2023 for Powder Blue which was also shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize that year. Her fellow JUNO 2026 nominees in the category are Bahamas, The Barr Brothers, Patrick Watson and The Weather Station.
20 March 2026
