Kylie V | Michael James Tapscott | saturn 17 | Love in Return
Vancouver-based indie-folkster Kylie V recently released a fantastic little ditty called “Catherine.” It begins quite simply, with just an acoustic guitar and vocals, but do not let its sparseness fool you– it soon crescendos into a wondrously expansive production. At about a minute into it, anyone listening will notice that it doubles in sonic space, as Kylie V’s friends join in, featuring Tegan Wahlgren on violin and Jess Jones on drums. Kylie V wrote the song for a longtime, long-distance friend and it’s glorious enough to make us wish that we had friends who would write songs for us as well. This track is everything that we love about the genre and it absolutely nails that Julien Baker vibe that we love so much. If you haven’t heard “Catherine,” you’re completely missing the boat– but fret not, we’re posting it here so that you can easily hit that play button:
Michael James Tapscott comes to us from the San Francisco Bay area and has been recording and performing under various names/ in various projects since 2004. A couple weeks back, he released an EP entitled Michael, the Worst. It is our pleasure to inform you that this is an ironic name and the song we’re about to show you, “Luxembourg Gardens,” is an absolute gem of a psychedelic folk song. Tapscott delivers a magnificently vulnerable vocal performance that is on par with the likes of Neil Young and Jeff Tweedy, two longtime favorites at UpToHear. These fantastic vocals, combined with the extraordinary instrumentation, make way for one of the best productions we’ve heard in quite awhile and features Jeff Moller on guitar. Give it a spin and you’ll likely be searching up the rest of the EP by song’s end:
Switching gears a bit, but not geographic regions, let us introduce you to California’s saturn 17. We say “introduce,” but with nearly 200k monthly listeners, some of you have probably found them long before we ever did. This queer indie pop/rock duo consists of Nika Fazeli and Halsey Bousquet who churn out music that has been inspired by “personal experience, heartaches, triumphs, and tears.” The song in question today, “tunnels,” is an indie rocker with divine moments of compassion and the “excitement of a new relationship that makes you hopeful for the future and helps heal any feelings of apathy towards love.” And though it is just a bit more revved up than the other tracks on this page, it still manages to remain in the pocket of raw and heartfelt vocal performances, as the song spends a great deal of its duration in a falsetto– one of our absolute favorite places for vocals to be.
A couple weeks back, we posted the latest track from Sean Patton, then received a submission from the man who helped him produce it: Max Frazer. Frazer was born and raised in Nanaimo BC and releases music under the moniker Love in Return. His latest single is called “Helpless Harmony” and it is one of the more ambitious recordings we’ve received. It seems like he’s packed everything into this thing, including, at times, those doubled vocals and harmonies that we’ve been chasing since we first discovered Elliott Smith. That is not to say that this is some sort of carbon copy– simply that it follows some of our most beloved recipes when it comes to vocal craft. “Helpless Harmony” is masterfully recorded and produced and Frazer has personally performed every instrument/ sound that it contains. Once you’ve had a listen, you will likely wonder how much he’d charge to produce some of your own music:
-TM