If there’s an ethos driving everything Luca Fogale does, it’s intention. His songs are unpretentious and free of gimmickry — reverberating instead with rich nuance, his whispered vocals hitting like a warm, enveloping breeze. “It’s why I write so slowly,” he confesses. “Every word matters to me.” Just as Hemingway edited out unnecessary words, or minimalist painter Frank Stella became synonymous with the phrase “what you see is what you see,” Fogale, too, endeavors to make art without artifice. This rare mix of skill and restraint is why Fogale — who will release his fourth album, Challenger, on January 30 — has a pair of JUNO Adult Contemporary Album of the Year nominations (for 2023’s Run When the Light Calls and 2020’s Nothing Is Lost) and has garnered more than 250 million streams.

Fogale was raised Catholic outside Vancouver, where he still lives. He subsequently learned to play the piano and guitar, which, by his early 20s, became his gospel instead. “My focus, instead of turning to God, was turned inwards; towards a reverence for the human spirit and for this world, and towards a deep exploration of self. In this shift,” he explains, “I have found the depth of gratitude, peace, and faith that I believe I was always looking for.”

Challenger, he shares, was written “mostly in quiet moments between being on the road.” In particular, he’d drive a few hours out of the city to a quiet cabin ensconced deep in the interior of British Columbia. There, he faced his doubts with courage and even wonder. “This album was born out of questioning who I have become and what has shaped me, and in turn, considering how much of my past is no longer serving me — how much I can challenge, and how much I can let go of,” he says. “The more time I spend engaging with this life, the wider my lens for the world gets. It requires me to reflect on myself and hold myself accountable for who I am. It raises the bar for who I want to be.”

If the Challenger process taught him anything, it’s that his most compelling work comes from all-too-human introspection. “For a long time I considered songwriting as a channeling of the cosmos — of extrinsic influence — as though ideas were merely flowing through us,” he says. “But the older I get, the more I’ve come to firmly plant my flag in the belief that all of this artistic expression comes from deep within us: the parts of ourselves that are either the most ready or the most needed for this world.”

Challenger arrives January 30 via Nettwerk Music Group, and features the singles Horizon, For, Ashes, Lost Without You, and Begin.