For artists like Tyler Shaw, who's used to working closely with collaborators, the pandemic had an outsize effect on the creative process. “I had just started writing for my new album, which was abruptly halted because of the outbreak,” he tells Apple Music. “I had to create everything out of my basement studio in Toronto, while adjusting to writing sessions virtually with other writers and producers around the world in different time zones. In hindsight, it brought me out of my comfort zone.” The result was his self-titled third album, which features “I See You” and “Worse for Me,” both of which he rerecorded in a pared-back style for this Home Session. “I love when you can scale back on the music production, listen to the song raw, and have an even more intense feeling of what the song is about,” he says. “This process just solidified the fact that these are great songs.” Included in those great songs is a cover of Justin Bieber’s “Off My Face,” which Shaw calls “a tribute to my fellow Canadian pop artist I wish I would have written myself. It’s just really beautiful, especially when stripped back.” During the last year and a half, Shaw realized his value as an artist. “It reminded me why I love music,” he says. “When everyone was in lockdown and things were feeling uncertain, we all turned to the arts for healing and calm. This pandemic was an equalizer, because it wasn’t partial to any group, age, race, religion, or creed. It inspired me to really be introspective and write songs about matters of the heart and themes that are really universal. I experimented with new sounds and new ways of creative writing because I had to.” He took that experimentation even further on his Home Session. “When I recorded ‘I See You,’ my daughter was sleeping next to me in the studio while I was cutting vocals,” says Shaw. “I was singing this song to her, and it’s a message I really want her to remember as she grows up.” “Worse for Me,” he explains, “is one of the few ballads I’ve written and recorded that isn’t necessarily all lovey-dovey and about romance; instead, it's about the heartache that comes with heartbreak. It brought me into a deeper space when I originally recorded it, and I went right back to that place when recording it again.”