Saskatchewan musician Katie Tupper dropped the long awaited debut EP Towards The End via Arts & Crafts.
A beautiful and sensual indie pop, R&B and soul music that showcases her talent.
About the EP:
Katie Tupper, a 23-year old neo-soul musician, embodies that spirit and is determined to show there’s an entire world of boundary-pushing, genre-defying artists at work within the often overlooked region.
Central to that mission is her new EP Towards The End – a sultry, glittering debut that showcases Tupper’s mastery as a musician, writer and producer.
Towards The End, co-produced by Connor Seidel (Charlotte Cardin, Matt Holubowski), is an ode to love, identity and the inextricable ways the two entwine. “It’s about navigating young love. About how we adapt and change with new people,” Tupper says.
Towards The End opener “Live Inside” starts with a drum kick, quickly joined by distant, emotive guitar and Tupper’s own omnipresent voice. An anthem for the COVID era, she sings, ‘Now that I live inside / I think I can have some peace of mind’. There’s a truth to it, both saddening and freeing: we’re more isolated than at any time in our lives, but have more time than ever before for self-reflection and realization. Refusing to be boxed into an anxious corner, Tupper instead opts for the wisdom and self-reliance she’s discovered from spending so much time in her own company.
“Danny” rapidly pulls in another direction, finding Tupper lost in her thoughts over a lover that should have been more than they were. With delicately tapping percussion and her own soothing backing harmonies, the song lures you into a world of regret and longing. She knows she’s left behind someone that simply needed leaving, but it doesn’t make the healing any easier. It coaxes you into a sense of security with its layered vocals and twinkling keys, only to yank that very shield away in the face of her direct, even frightened lyrics: ‘what’s the worst some words can do to me now?’ The potential power of the words is consciously undermined by Tupper’s own inner-battle. The worst that can be done, she’s doing to herself, and it’s a feeling anyone who’s suffered the end of a love that they thought was “it” can immediately understand.
Rolling off that very idea is “How Can Get I Your Love?”. With slow, serene strumming, more than any track on Towards The End, it calls towards the plains of her home. “I grew up in fields of butter,” she sings, but the dominant theme here is grasping and scrambling back towards a love long gone, albeit one she simply can’t accept has passed. If they were the one, how could they leave her, after all? “I know you got another lover, but being honest that don’t matter”, she utters in a bruised tone: words relatable to anyone who still sees themselves as the primary aspect of another’s life, in spite of all facts to the contrary. Sometimes, there’s simply no letting go, and “How Can I Get Your Love?” encapsulates that very feeling.
“Cost Of Loving You” is equally wistful, albeit towards an entirely different destination. With delicate strings and gentle percussion, it unfurls into a tapestry of acceptance and regret intertwined. For anyone who’s invested time – time after time – into a relationship that ultimately went nowhere, there’s some serious acceptance that must be done. There are days, months, even years of hurt, but one has to arrive at a pragmatic place: it just is what is. “Cost of Loving You” is the anthem for just such a moment of conclusive acceptance.
Towards The End: 📷📷📷📷📷📷📷📷/10.
Katie Tupper – Towards The End [Streaming]
