Bliss Carmxn is the project of Adam Kaasa, a Canadian-born, London-based artist whose work stretches well beyond music into academia, curation, and performance. The name itself has a literary root, born out of a stretch of homesickness that sent Kaasa digging into Canadian poetry, where the work of poet William Bliss Carman stuck with them in particular, eventually lending the project its name. Musically, Bliss Carmxn moves through alt-pop shaped by electronic shimmer, piano-led songwriting, and folk intimacy, a sound that’s earned attention from outlets like Clash and Mystic Sons since the 2024 debut EP Hold My Hand And I’ll Hold Yours.
That EP was followed by Open Love, a second collection released in June 2026 that pushed the project into more personal, story-driven territory, four songs built around love, connection, and different shapes of kinship. As a queer artist, Kaasa has approached that subject from more than one angle, not just the relationships people choose for themselves as adults, but the blood ties they didn’t get to pick either, messy as those often are. “Caffeine Orange” and “Never Wanted” led that release.
Outside of Bliss Carmxn, Kaasa works as an academic at London’s Royal College of Art, where they co-lead research into art and outer space, curatorial work that’s taken an unexpectedly literal turn recently. A piece of their own writing was selected as one of 48 works for an art book being sent to the Moon by the Moon Gallery Foundation, set to land on the lunar south pole in 2026, a genuinely rare crossover between someone’s academic work and their creative one.
One Shot
“One Shot” is a joyful, piano-driven indie-pop track built around the idea of getting back out on the dance floor alone and completely on your own terms. It opens with a striking image, a glamorous, disco-queen figure who blanks on the words to her own song before finding them again during a bright, expansive middle section. Kaasa has pointed to a pretty specific mix of reference points behind it too, something in the neighborhood of Queen at their most dramatic, crossed with the jittery drive of Vampire Weekend, softened by a Paul Simon-style ear for a gentle, memorable melody. The track was produced in London by ROOKES, a frequent collaborator on Bliss Carmxn releases.
The single also carries something more personal underneath the party atmosphere. Kaasa recently went back to Canada specifically to drive his late grandfather’s old pickup truck, a trip that got him thinking about the rural, western part of his background he’d left behind years earlier, and “One Shot” folds that heritage gently into his current life as a queer artist in London rather than treating the two as separate worlds. Running underneath the song is a plain, sincere wish to matter to somebody, to actually be there for someone rather than just existing alongside them.
That idea of joy as something you choose on purpose, rather than something that happens to you, is really the engine of the whole song. It’s less about resenting a night that’s unfolding without you and more about realizing you’re capable of being your own good company. Layered vocal harmonies and a genuine sense of conviction carry that message through to the end, landing less like a lecture and more like someone genuinely enjoying themselves and inviting you to do the same. At roughly three and a half minutes, it moves fast and doesn’t overstay its welcome.
Final Thoughts
“One Shot” is a bright, generous piece of songwriting that manages to fold real personal history into three and a half minutes clearly built for the dance floor, and it’s a strong showing from an artist whose world keeps expanding in genuinely unusual directions, right up to a literal trip to the Moon.
You can find Bliss Carmxn on their official website, on Bandcamp, on SoundCloud, on Spotify, and on Instagram. Stay tuned to MusicOnTheRox.com for all your music news and reviews.
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