Ten minute tea with Afternoon Tea. Spend ten minutes with Afternoon Tea. In the time it takes to boil one kettle, and let one cup of tea steep, we will have your daily art + music fix covered. Take your afternoon tea break with our Afternoon Tea curators.
Today’s tea + soundtrack + visuals curated by Nathan Lawr. Nathan Lawr came up during the Toronto indie rock heyday that spawned bands like Broken Social Scene and Feist, drumming for Royal City and Sea Snakes. In 2000, he started writing his own folk songs, releasing a series of critically-acclaimed solo albums. In 2010, he started Minotaurs and spent the next 10 years writing, recording, and performing with a psychedelic funk band.
Now, almost a decade later, Lawr has come into his own, finding his voice as a pop singer and releasing his most powerful collection of songs to date. Nathan’s upcoming album, Apocalypse Marshmallow, is a meticulously-crafted, dynamic powerhouse.
The newest single from the album is “Restless” – a song about living in the modern dichotomy: we can have anything we want but we’re relentlessly unsatisfied.
One piece of music: Thursday Afternoon by Brian Eno.
During this pandemic, finding ways to access peacefulness and mindfulness has been a challenge. This piece of music, hard to really call it a “song,” has been clutch. 1 hour and 10 minutes of ambient beauty. It never ceases to create a platform for some breathing and calm reflection which, basically, has saved my life.
One visual: Seamus Heaney’s New Selected Poems 1966-1987.
The poetry section on my bookshelf (yes, I have a poetry section) is pretty large. I have a bit of a weakness for buying books, so poetry is perfect because I can buy a lot of it affordably. But also, reading poetry opens my mind and inspires me to explore the ways language can conjure images and can turn your mind on it’s head, subverting assumptions and expectations. Seamus Heaney’s New Selected Poems 1966-1987 (published by Faber & Faber, 1987) continually blows my mind. Witty, visceral, beautiful, visual, Heaney’s poems make me want to get out my guitar and pen and write new music and words. Don’t write poetry off. It can change your life.
One type of tea to pair: Green tea with ginger. The cleansing power and zip of green tea with the zing of ginger is practically an elixir of life. I drink it whenever I need to focus and get my shit together.
Tea + Me 