Nico Paulo - Wave Call (2020)

Nico Paulo's debut EP, Wave Call, moves with steady gestures. Paulo, who immigrated to Canada from Portugal in 2014, reconciles with change and a rolling definition of home on her EP, which she describes as "a compilation of sounds where you can feel the landscape of the two different places."

Across Wave Call, Paulo sings of the ebb and flow of life and love. Men run down a mountain like boulders en route to flatten everything in their wake, and tears roll down Paulo's face as she discovers that her old fears were stowaways when she moved. Briefly, on "Would You Stay," Paulo pushes back against change when she, longing to be still, asks, "Would you stay a little longer?"

But even the softly spun folk-pop instrumentals of Wave Call, which centre on Paulo's waltzing guitar rhythms and tumbling vocal melodies, are perpetually in motion. In a particularly lovely moment, Evan Cartwright's brushed drumming on opener "Please Don't Forget" feels like the salty spray from a relay of waves. The movements are hypnotic and soothing and by the end of Wave Call, it feels like change isn't so bad after all.