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 Matías Roden.
Matías Roden is a Peruvian-Canadian singer-songwriter living in Vancouver, BC. After performing in cover bands and writing for others in the city’s indie pop scene (including landing college radio play for one of his cuts), Matías began developing his own material as an artist. Drawing from classic British synth-pop combined with a modern, sample-based production sensibility and unflinchingly personal lyrics, Matías wrote and produced over a dozen demos in his makeshift bedroom studio. Those caught the attention of acclaimed singer/songwriter/producer Louise Burns and shortly after he was signed to Vancouver’s Light Organ Records/604 Records.
New single, “Great Escape,” is sung from the perspective of depression itself, telling a depressed person they’ll never get over them, like a twisted love song. Written during COVID while recovering from a brain injury, Matías channeled the feelings of darkness from that time into the song’s lyrics but made sure to retain a twinge of hope in its rousing production.
A song about failing that sounds like winning, stream + share “Great Escape” now:
The official music video was shot by Peter Faint, a friend of Matías‘ who has worked as an editor on shows for Netflix, Adult Swim and others. His incredible energy as a filmmaker was exactly what Matías wanted for the propulsive song’s visuals.
“Free Man in Paris” by Joni Mitchell
Joni Mitchell’s music recently returned to Spotify and so I’ve been diving into my favourite albums of hers now that I can once again neatly save them in my library. Since I have them organized by chronological ‘add date’, it has the odd effect of making them seem like they came out right after Ariana Grande’s latest album, which I have also luxuriated in recently. “Free Man in Paris” off Joni’s seminal ‘Court and Spark’ has been feeling more personal to me than I remember it being before her years-long Spotify absence. I know exactly why: I recently was able to spend a couple of weeks in London (not quite Paris, but close enough) staying with a friend, free of work and responsibility for a short life intermission that I felt I hadn’t had in years, spending days on end wandering through cobble-stoned alleyways, walking into art galleries and museums, and happily stumbling out of bars later in the evening. It may be a cliche for a North American resident to seek a carefree escapade in a European city but whatever held true in 1974 still holds true today it seems. It also helps that the song, like its parent album, is a delightful, deceptively simple slice of folk jazz fusion that continues to unravel the more I listen to it.
I came across the Idols of the Cyclades in a history of art class years ago and I’ve always been fascinated by them. These small statues, whose purpose is largely unknown, are one of the few remnants of a civilization in the rocky islands between southern Greece and Turkey almost 5,000 years ago. Their discovery in the late 19th century greatly influenced abstract art, and their radical minimalism and geometry feels more futuristic than anything we typically associate with the long-gone past. One of my favourite films, the Kubrick-Spielberg mash-up ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence’, features a race of hyper advanced robots that take over the earth in its epilogue, and they bear a striking resemblance to these figures, faces reduced to solid shapes without anything to convey emotion, unnaturally long limbs and necks that seem to disregard a functional biology. I find myself inspired by art from different time periods and places in the world, and there are certain aesthetics that seem to recur throughout human history, like it’s something ingrained in us. Perhaps these stone dolls were meant to represent gods with unknown power that reduced their humanity, turning them into abstract shapes, much like our current culture has begun to regard advancement in technology with similar fear and awe.
My absolute favourite tea is a quality vanilla rooibos with a splash of 1% milk. It’s delicious and soothing, practically like having a dessert in a cup. I long ago discovered that if I don’t set a rock solid routine for myself my days will careen out of control, and part of that is allowing myself little things to enjoy so I’ll stick to said routine. Having a good cup of vanilla rooibos is an essential part of my pre-bedtime ritual, usually accompanied by a good book as I sit comfortably slumped against my headboard.
Tea + Me 