Close your eyes, take a deep breath and join me on a journey through Thomas LaVine’s latest release “Calico”. It’s one of those songs that pull you in from the beginning with atmospheric sounds moving and growing into the opening line “A house is not a home set apart in winter”. As per usual LaVine paints beautiful imagery with his words, woven into stunning layered vocals that are tastefully supported by the rest of the arrangement.

What I’ve always loved about his songs is that they have depth both lyrically and musically, every listen uncovers another layer in production and the words sung are told through every note played. “Calico” was inspired by landscapes seen during a trip through Northern Michigan and it manages to encapsulate that feeling of images passing by your window and the wonder of imagining what stories lie behind that brief glimpse of a foreign place. The song feels very light and open, with echos, layers and beautiful guitars that build the vastness of the open sky. The drums and driving rhythm guitar move the song through this space taking you along on the journey. And just like on this imaginary road trip you never really know what’s behind the next hill, the track takes no obvious turns and doesn’t shy away to completely fall into a pause of atmospheric sounds to build back into a bridge that breaks the driving rhythm for a few bars to remind us to stop and take in the view “And I made a mistake / I should’ve stayed a little longer that day / Out at the lake”.

Once again Thomas manages to use nature as a metaphor to express part of what it means to be human. “Calico” speaks of a desire to be present to feel the sky above you. It also speaks of the sadness of the moments passed that we can never return to. Life doesn’t have a repeat button, but my music player sure has, so I’m not gonna make any mistakes here and listen on loop for the rest of the day - or maybe until he releases the full “Everwood” EP.

Reach out to Thomas LaVine

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Written with love by Luna. "Calico" has been added to our "Fresh Indie" and "Artist Pick" playlists on Spotify and is already playing on the radio.