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 David Vertesi.
For 15 years, David Vertesi has appeared as an integral part of some of Canada’s most exciting indie-rock projects. Whether he’s playing in Hey Ocean!, Shad, Dear Rouge, Hannah Georgas, or Said the Whale, producing Haley Blais, Noble Son, Ashleigh Ball, or Riun Garner, Vertesi brings a uniquely sensuous and brooding sensibility, an intricate sonic depth that multiplies the layers of a song.
In his solo work, these dramatic flairs ignite on full display. Vertesi has an equal command over choreographing lush technologic atmospheres of instrumentation as he does squeezing the naked emotional core from a piano, steady bass drum, and the soft plucking rhythm of a guitar. But it’s his own voice that distinguishes these spectrums of rough-and-tumble and tightly polished stories of confusion, loneliness, death, and ennui. Vertesi‘s growling inimitable baritone deepens the tender poetry and sense of humour as he emerges centre-stage as a fully formed front-man of his own musical expression.
Stream + share his new single “Who Am I Now?” via your preferred platform: Here.
This song was born out of the individual and collective renegotiation of self that I have witnessed since 2020 and the beginning of the pandemic. With my band of 15+ years [Hey Ocean!] on indefinite hiatus, I was attempting to do this for myself, however, I couldn’t help but notice pretty much everyone around me was doing the same: leaving jobs, moving cities, ending relationships. But whether mourning or celebrating the loss of our old lives it seemed like we were all asking ourselves the same question.
“The Cabin” by Haley Blais is the last single before the release of her new album, “Wisecrack”, which I co-produced. It’s largely mellow but juxtaposed by stabs of intensity. The song is almost like a day dream of the dog days of summers past spent at her family cabin. Haley’s lyrics unfold almost like collages, a series of separate pages in her private scrapbook/diary with each vignette so specific and personal it transports you. It was an incredible project to be a part of and I can’t wait for everyone to hear the whole record later this month.
My tea of choice is almost always Earl Grey, but Rain City “Misty Earl Grey” is a fav from a North Vancouver, Canada tea company that makes full leaf tea, no chemicals, all in plastic free packaging. Earl grey has been my longtime favourite, especially in the morning since I stopped drinking coffee almost a decade ago. Something about it just makes me feel so relaxed and mellow.
“The Evening” by Fintan Magee, is a 15 story mural I produced when I was Executive Director of Vancouver Mural Festival, an organization I founded back in 2016. Fintan is an incredible and celebrated painter and Muralist from Australia. His art always carries deeper meaning and connection to places in which he paints. In this case he used two local cultural organizers as models, Cazimi Loro (left) and Nick Collinet (right) both are community catalyzers who are actively involved in supporting local, independent, and underrepresented artists in dance, music, and art. Nick is also specifically focused on transforming city policy around use of public space for events and cultural gatherings in Vancouver.
It’s amazing to watch muralists work on this scale, you’ll notice he even had to paint on people’s balconies. Fintan’s more recent works feature large scale portraits of subjects behind textured glass and were the inspiration for my music video for my newest release, “Who Am I Now?”
Tea + Me 