Toronto producer/DJ Paul Chin and singer-songwriter Desirée Dawson have teamed up for a heartfelt ode to embracing vulnerabilities in love. "Take It Or Leave It" is laced with both the uneasiness and anticipation of opening up in a new relationship for the first time. Laying insecurities aside, Chin and Dawson share their unfiltered feelings to their love prospects: “I wanna thank you and remind you that what you’re seeing is what you get. What I’m saying is what I meant. Said you wanted all of me. Well, this is all of me.”
The feel-good electro-R&B instrumentation of "Take It Or Leave It" blends elegantly with the song's honest penmanship. On-the-brink violin progressions and jazzy piano chords contrast with bold snares to provide the perfect stage for Dawson’s petal-soft vocals to steal the show.
What started off as a rough brainstorming session turned out to be one of the first tracks from Chin’s upcoming EP, Full Spectrum: “[Take It Or Leave It] started at a writing camp Desirée (Dawson), Natasha (Fisher) and I were all invited to, helmed by Babyface. It was the last day of the camp, and we were all assigned to what was effectively the ‘leftovers room’ at the studio, probably because we weren’t really seen as the ‘promising’ pop songwriters among the cohort,” Chin shares with EARMILK over email. “Recognizing that we weren’t the favourites also kind of emboldened us to say, ‘screw it; let’s forget about what’s trendy and just make a song that’s HONEST. That session was the one session I had all week which felt like a collaboration in the truest sense; a piece of art that feels distinctly and identifiably like each of us and our artistic voices. We got through the first verse and chorus that day, and Desirée and I wrote the rest of the song long-distance over the next year and a little bit,” Chin explains. Though the cards they were dealt left the odds for success improbable, Chin and Dawson realized they could make magic together with what they had–and they certainly did.
Be on the lookout for Chin’s upcoming album, Full Spectrum, due March 20, 2020. Pre-order Full Spectrum here.
