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 Keegan Trumpour.
Opeongo is the moniker of Midland, Ontario’s Keegan Trumpour and an ever-rotating cast of musicians. Opeongo has released two full length albums (2019’s Miasma and 2021’s we’ll all go with the will-o’-the-wisp); the brand new Eventual Mt. Lee marks their third release, with a fourth underway in the near future.
The songs on Eventual Mt. Lee were informed by the sudden loss of Keegan‘s best friend Liam Steffler, with whom they were living at the time of his passing. He considered this album as needing to be written to honour Liam, as well as offer healing to listeners experiencing loss.
This album has taught me that the beauty in this world can help make sense of loss and grief and pain, and that though the joy and love and happiness that is abundant in living can never and should never supersede tragedy and devastation, the two can mutually coexist and help contextualize one another.
Stream + share Eventual Mt. Lee in full:
Eventual Mt. Lee’s highlighted single, “H,” found new meaning to Keegan as part of this collection of tribute songs. Speaking on its origin, he says:
I wrote the first line of this song years ago when I was still in highschool after reading about the 1930’s Hollywood actress Peg Entwistle who took her own life by jumping off of the “H” of the Hollywood(land) sign – Holy hell, Peg, Hollywood is haunting me. I never had an idea beyond the alliteration until I truly knew what grief was; that it looks you in the eye at every stop and start of the day; that it can be a friend, but mostly a menace; that it might get muted in moments but is always present, clear as day. I imagined being someone who loved Peg and was loved by her, and constantly seeing this “H” taunting and haunting like the sore thumb that grief was. Once I had truly lost someone this deeply I understood what this silly line I had started writing in highschool was all about.
Song: bagatelle no.2 by Teruyuki Nobuchika
Painting: The Lantern Parade by Thomas Cooper Gotch
Both the aforementioned song and painting feel like very different dreams I’ve had, though they could too be one. I feel I could live in The Lantern Parade; to wander around and be a part of that excitement and piercing feeling the orange light evokes while listening to the leisurely “bagatelle no. 2” feels to me like a nice place to be.
And a cuppa “Yorkshire Gold” orange pekoe for all of my Yorkshire friends out there. (There’s something very orange about this whole submission – maybe we ought to make it a hot toddy if it’s cold in Lantern Parade world).
Tea + Me 