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 Mike Evin.
Piano-pop songwriter Mike Evin is sharing an earnest and hopeful new album by the name of Something Stirs When You Sing, featuring a collection of songs whose characters long to find joy and feel alive. “That’s always been my intention every time I sit down at the piano,” Mike details. “Singing and playing with just my piano for accompaniment is the most immediate way I feel a connection with the songs. This is the first time I’ve made an album with that approach as the foundation.”
Working with producer Chris Stringer (Rose Cousins, Abigail Lapell), Evin and Stringer prioritized emotion and vibe over precision and perfection, handpicking from a batch of about 120 songs, mostly written during the early pandemic years.
The album’s focus track, “Outside With A Guitar,” was inspired by the community of musicians that Evin was a part of, led by Ken Whiteley, who performed on Toronto’s Roxton Road during that time. Every night for almost two years, they made music outside. The jovial song took root one night after seeing the abandon with which one of the street’s couples sang a song. It alludes to difficult times but is ultimately about the catharsis of making music.
Something Stirs When You Sing is Evin‘s seventh album and may be his most immediate work to date. Its stripped-down nature brings the hallmarks of Evin‘s timeless ‘old school pop’ music into fine focus – poignant storytelling, propulsive piano playing, conversational singing, rich harmonic movement and adventurous melodies that live inside you.
Stream + share Something Stirs When You Sing in full.
Watch + share the official “Outside With A Guitar” music video:
Music: Laura Nyro – “Upstairs By A Chinese Lamp”
Laura Nyro is one of my favourite artists, not well known enough to the general public. This song, like many of her songs, creates a vibe so well. It takes its time painting a picture, and it feels very impressionistic. There are soothing and meditative sections, and then there are sections full of thunder.
Visual: Picasso – “Repose” (1908)
I love the colours in this painting. And this seems like a nice vibe for the beginning of Fall. Once again, this evokes something that is hard to put into words, and I feel that is a wonderful thing about art (not just visual art).
Tea: Bengal Spice
Slightly exotic (could just be the name!), this tea seems to relax and inspire me at the same time. We had this tea a lot growing up, and it’s stuck with me all these years.
Tea + Me 