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 Allen Dobb.
After more than a decade long retreat from recording and performing, singer-songwriter Allen Dobb is returning with a new album, Alone Together, scheduled for release on February 9th, 2024. It’s a collection of ten new original songs drawn from characters, stories, and landscapes that are part of Dobb‘s experience working as a range management specialist in the interior of British Columbia.
The vein of the Fraser River, and B.C.’s interior landscapes run through many of his new songs. The first single, “All Costs,” is also the first song written by Dobb in several years. It charts the course of a rural couple coming to terms with their years spent together living on the land.
The melody came from a recording that Dobbs had archived a year or two before. After lots of lyrical exploration, the song drew on several threads. One being the easy fate of the river flowing slowly downhill contrasted with challenges that rural ranch life can bring in a relationship. Another thread was drawn from images and conversations he had gathered while helping with recovery efforts in the ranching community following the 2017 Cariboo and Elephant Hill wildfires.
Alone Together was produced by Dobb‘s brother and close collaborator, Cameron Dobb. It was recorded at their respective studios over the pandemic in Vancouver. Steeped in their own rural roots growing up on a farm in northwestern Alberta near the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the brothers bring a depth and maturity to the songs and the production. The ten-song recording has a warmth and authenticity that harkens back to some of the classic country sounds of the 1970s while at the same time, it has its own currency.
Philosopher’s Brew
My special tea is “Philosopher’s Brew” a perfectly named tea for songwriters, I think. It’s made by Silk Road Tea in Victoria, BC and is a blend of rosehips, lemongrass, citrus peel, and lavender flowers. I don’t drink black tea at all, though when I was on tour in the UK once I regularly drank black tea and milk, which makes sense when that’s where you are… but the habit didn’t stick after I got home. I love “Philosopher’s Brew” because it’s bright and contemplative at the same time. It’s the perfect pickup in the late afternoon, which can be a productive writing time for me.
Chapel Entrance at Ted DeGrazia’s Studio
Philosopher’s Brew is the perfect songwriting companion when it comes to tea, and it might occasionally inspire some words all on its own. My writing is deeply inspired by landscape, so when I see other artists’ interpretation of landscapes I’m often moved. That could happen while reading a well written passage of fiction or seeing the work of an accomplished visual artist. I lived in Arizona for awhile and on a recent trip back there, I toured the late Ted DeGrazia’s studio. After the first visit, I couldn’t get enough, and went back several days in a row to write and sketch. There was such a strong artistic energy created for me by the adobe buildings and the spaces where DeGrazia lived and worked, especially the small chapel. Such a strong spirit of creative commitment with the “artist’s way” still lingering in that place. I don’t have any songs from that visit yet, maybe the next album…
Rose Cousins “The Shell” from We Have a Made Spark
Rose Cousins’ “The Shell” is the perfect pairing for my 10-minute tea. I love Rose’s voice, writing, production, and the very settled groove and on this recording. The couple in this song is struggling and coping in their relationship. The couple in “All Cost’s” is struggling too. With longing and loneliness, they “disappeared into the words we could never say”.
Tea + Me 