"hanging on (demo version)" is a single, one track, released January 25, 2025. It isn't an album in the full sense, so this guide treats it as what it is: a small, close-up document. Desirée Dawson is a Vancouver-based recording artist, songwriter, producer, yoga teacher and sound healing facilitator. Her catalog includes the JUNO-nominated Meet You At The Light, Full Spectrum (Deluxe) and Love-Notes, and the viral singles "Cup Of Tea" and "I Am Blessed." This single sits among her 2025 releases, alongside "Chop Some Wood," "I Am Blessed" and "the fall."
The "demo version" label matters. Where her larger projects show a finished production sensibility across a full arc, a demo invites you into an earlier stage of a song's life. It suggests a sketch, a first form, and it suits an artist whose stated aim is to tend to the spaces within us that have been silenced into isolation. A demo is, in its way, an unpolished space left open.
I can't offer a track-by-track account of the arrangement, because the available facts don't document it. What can be said comes from how Dawson characteristically works. Her main instrument is her voice, described as powerful yet soothing, often accompanied by body percussion or a baritone ukulele. Her music draws on pop, folk, soul, Americana and country, and is often called genre-blending singer-songwriter music.
Her usual palette is spare. The baritone ukulele has a warmer, more resonant tone than smaller ukuleles, and body percussion grounds the sound in the physical. Pacing in her work tends toward the reflective, favoring emotional legibility over density or trend-driven production. A demo format likely amplifies those qualities: fewer layers, more room, the voice close at hand. Treat that as an expectation, not a certainty, and let your own ears confirm it.
"hanging on (demo version)"
The single's only track is the signature track by default, and the title carries its own weight. "Hanging on" names a state many people know: persistence without resolution, holding a line while the outcome is unclear. Pair that with the word "demo" and the release feels unguarded. It lands because of what Dawson's work consistently prioritizes: vulnerability over virtuosity, and presence over polish. Listen for how the voice carries the song, and for whatever the arrangement leaves out.
If this single draws you in, her other 2025 releases, "Chop Some Wood," "I Am Blessed" and "the fall," show where her work is currently pointing.
This is not bhakti or kirtan, and it would be a stretch to file it there. Dawson draws on several interconnected traditions rather than a single lineage. Her musical foundation is North American singer-songwriter craft rooted in folk, soul, Americana and country, where personal narrative and emotional directness are the main tools. Alongside that sits her work as a yoga teacher and sound healing facilitator, which places her within contemporary embodied wellness and holistic music-making. The throughline is liberation, authenticity and the healing potential of collective presence. Her 2023 participation in the Keychange cohort also signals alignment with progressive music-maker communities.
"hanging on (demo version)" belongs most naturally to the singer-songwriter strand, a song in an early form, offered plainly. Its contemplative qualities come from her sensibility rather than from any devotional genre.
This single will land hardest for someone in the middle of something unfinished: a long stretch of endurance, a season of waiting, a period of grief or uncertainty where "getting through" is the whole task. It suits listeners who value restraint and intimacy, and who are open to music as a quiet companion for emotional work. Those who already know Dawson's catalog may enjoy hearing a song at an earlier stage.
It is likely a poor fit for anyone seeking high-energy, danceable or heavily produced music. Listeners who are put off by wellness language may also find her framing of music's purpose a barrier, though a single song asks very little of you on that front.
Listen alone, with headphones, in the evening or whenever the day has quieted. The song is short, so give it two passes. On the first, simply let the voice reach you without analysis. On the second, notice the spaces: where the instrumentation thins, where the vocal breathes, how a demo's openness differs from a finished record's gloss.
If you want to go deeper afterward, a good next step is her fuller work, beginning with Meet You At The Light, or the music-based workshops and sessions listed at desireedawsonmusic.com, where her approach is experienced in community rather than alone.
