By: Eric Reyes
July 08, 2021

Music that makes you want to pack your car and drive. Just drive.

And then hop off on some trail and walk. Just walk. Taylor T’s beautifully nostalgic ‘Blue Bear’ reconnects us to a time and place we may not have even experienced, but can feel somewhere deep inside us, a shared memory.

Well, it’s Wales, so theoretically we could all go there and experience it, but that’s besides the point.

Storytelling, an integral component of Folk, is one of the key strengths of this track. We’re transported by the expert songwriting, able to dwell fully in the space created by our narrator’s words and voice.

His voice has an exceptional quality that just feels so alive, so present. His vocal quality makes you feel as though he could be in another room, playing for anyone who will listen, reachable, touchable. ‘Pained’ is a lazy way of describing a vocal quality full of passion and an unorthodox intonation. Here it’s an excited tremble at the edge of breaking that surges and threatens to overflow, yet is so calm on the surface, save where it breaks on the rocks and reveals the tumult below. Taylor’s accent adds a wonderful individual characteristic in his pronunciation that suits his choice of words, and gives them even more life and breathes into them a spark of something extra that really speaks to us, the audience.

The understated instrumentals let Taylor T’s voice really drive the enterprise forward, but they are not there just to sound pretty and take up space. The careful, practiced sound surrounds you and creates this acoustic lattice work of sound that holds you aloft as the energy of the track flows through and all around you. It would be a disservice just to know it as backing, as it is a character all its own, but you’ll understand once you listen in.

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