Over the course of the pandemic, Canadian alt-pop stylist Derik John Baker—aka Virginia to Vegas—has been dropping singles and EPs that have functioned like status updates, beginning with the October 2020 release of don’t wake me, I’m dreaming. “At that point in the pandemic, I was in a wine-driven haze,” Baker admits to Apple Music, “so that EP felt dreamy, with nods to some of my ’70s references, like Fleetwood Mac. But now, it’s more like, ‘I don’t feel so anxious anymore. I don’t feel like the world could be ending…but I still don’t feel great.’” With it’s a little complicated, but i’m okay., Baker delivers another set of earworms that explore his favorite topic—the equally ecstatic and soul-crushing power of love—but with a brighter, neon-tinted glow that illuminates some of his less obvious influences. “I’ve been making pop music for the past 10 years, but my two favorite bands are Tame Impala and The War on Drugs,” he says. “And [Phoenix’s] Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix is probably my favorite album of all time. When I listen to those bands, I’m like, ‘Man, I wish I could make cool music!’ And now that I’m in my thirties and have my own little studio, I’m able to really spend the time making music that comes from that place I truly love.” Here, Baker gives us the track-by-track lowdown on his latest EP dispatch. “amnesia” “I was thinking about that movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I love Jim Carrey, though I’ve always disliked that movie, because it feels so dark. But l could never escape the concept—obviously, I’ve had relationships in my life where I wondered, ‘Would it be better to not think about that?’ I was listening to a podcast where this one guy was talking about how only humans view ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ as ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ But everywhere else in science, ‘negative’ and ‘positive’ are just two opposing forces that drive change—without polarity, the world doesn’t turn. So, sometimes, even when you think about the relationships that went poorly, you still learn something from it, and you still take something away from it. So, I guess the answer is, you probably don’t want to forget the bad relationships!” “no excuses” “It’s not intentional that I continually write this love story about friends, but especially in high school and college, I had a lot of those relationships. I was raised by my mom, so I was always more comfortable hanging out around women than I was hanging around guys. It wasn’t until my twenties that I built a good group of guy friends, whereas I always had a lot of girl friends. That concept [of friends falling in love] was common for me. But this song is supposed to be cheeky—there’s a bunch of dumb lyrics in this that I just think are hilarious.” “outerspace” “There’s a lot of things in the world that can get you into a negative mindset. Luckily, if I’m in a terrible mood, I can come sit in my little studio and play the guitar, and who knows—maybe six hours later, I’ve got something that didn’t exist before and that brings me a lot of happiness. I was really trying to make this one trippy, like that feeling of when you look at someone for the first time and have that real connection in that eye gaze. Sometimes, it does just make you take a step back and go, ‘Holy crap—how amazing is it that we’re on this spinning rock floating through space because a bunch of particles decided to smash together a couple billion years ago!’”