In his younger years when an old four-track tape recorder was decidedly his greatest companion, Chris Ho would have been horrified of the prospect of performing on stage, let alone setting out on tour.

 But shortly after the release of his official debut, City Of Dust, the Vancouver-born singer songwriter would take home an award for Songwriter of the Year in the 2013 Vancouver Island Music Awards, and chart at #2 on CBC Radio 3’s weekly Top 30 Indie Tracks shortly thereafter. Following that, Ho has embarked on three Western Canadian Tours, performed at several music festivals across Canada including Rifflandia and North by Northeast, and shared stages with acts such as Hey Ocean, The Matinee, Katheryn Calder, and many others.

 But while faithful fans and friends had once helped carry him out of his shell and onto a stage, Ho gradually became disenchanted by the music industry and withdrew once again into himself. 

Spiraling into a deep depression, he began to drift away from the once resolute desire to perform. He began to fall out of love with music: “A lot of stuff from the past started surfacing that I hadn’t dealt with properly. I realized that I wasn’t pursuing music for the right reasons. Years ago when my closest friend took their life, I responded to it by engrossing myself in music, to the point where my whole sense of self became tied up in it. For a while that pushed me forward, but it also perpetuated a pattern of depression until eventually I broke. I was forced to step back and reevaluate things, and then make an affirmation of change." 

Now, after an almost three-year hiatus, Chris Ho returns to his roots as a recording artist with a newfound sense of self realization and awareness. Out of the ashes of what was, comes the launch of his long-awaited second record, Places You've Been.

 While the record carries a familiar current of both ear-catching hooks and dream-like ballads, there is a striking sense of cohesion throughout, as each song is filled with a deep sense of honesty and authenticity. As with his earlier demos, the record is primarily self-produced, with the bulk of the vocal tracks having been recorded, quite literally, in the shower. "You definitely can't tell by the recordings, but it seems kind of funny and fitting because I used to record my very first demos in the shower all the time. It's like a rite of passage that I'm revisiting."