Carly Taich - It Tends to Glow (2020)

Before completing production on her EP, It Tends To Glow, North Carolina based songstress Carly Taich wasn’t sure if she would ever release another album again. Following her 2017 full length debut, Reverie, and the subsequent years of steadfast aspiration, Taich had recently made peace with the idea of retiring from the musical hamster wheel. Upon reaching this conclusion, the songwriter inadvertently managed to find a more bona fide version of herself. “Ironically, when I allowed myself the freedom to not have to write or share my songs, I started writing again,” Taich confesses. The result is a six part vignette that ventures to unravel one of life’s most eternal questions: What is love?

The EP’s closer, “Red Herring,” was the first song that Taich wrote since nearly hanging up her hat. Belying the song’s bridge, the intimate confession “I just want to be understood / And good at everything,” symbolizes both her emotional stature at the time and a universally relatable sentiment. Newly free from her creative constraints, and completely detached from expectation, Taich embraces her new outlook as an opportunity to engage with her art in a new way.

In a succinct, 23 minute journey, Taich explores the dichotomy of love’s “magical and frightening” nature. From the heart-wrenching loss bemoaned in “Tomatoes” to the patient romantic dance of “The Nest,” relationships are at the core of Taich’s newest 60’s folk-inspired collection. In the timely “New Year’s Eve,” she offers to help carry the emotional burden of a friend’s heartache. Realizing she cannot take away another’s pain, Taich laments, “If there’s one thing I can do, I can always sing your blues.”

On this endeavor, Taich replaces her signature cinematic production choices with a more purist approach. She notes, “the production of my last album started as a jam session. In contrast, I meditated on these songs for a long time before taking them to production.” With intentionality at the center of the project, she explains that “even stopping at six songs was a conscious choice. I feel like I’ve said everything I needed to say in this particular season of my life.”

With a bite-sized assortment of piano-forward tunes, Taich masterfully captures a notion that resonates long after the final note. Sometimes love looks like waiting, sometimes it looks like grieving, and sometimes it looks like doing nothing — to simply love without expectation. Like a 6-sided die, every song on Taich’s balanced EP explores a different side of what it means to offer grace, whether outwardly to another being, or inward toward oneself.