Growth rarely follows a straight line. A vine needs something to hold, and survival can require turning towards another living thing.
That image gives Tara Van‘s “Miles On It” a useful emotional starting point. The Toronto soul artist’s four-track EP considers loss, love and perseverance alongside environmental concern.
Yet its optimism does not depend on ignoring harm. Instead, Van asks what people owe to the lives, relationships and creative communities they already have.
Her concerns connect private grief with public responsibility. Violence, anger and ecological damage inform her writing, but so does the desire to keep moving with hope.
The EP seeks to offer more than personal reassurance. Van wants people to process grief and make changes in their lives. That ambition gives the EP a clear ethical centre: appreciation should lead to care, rather than remain a comforting thought.
Vintage soul, neo-soul, blues and jazz form Van’s chosen direction. She names Etta James and Ella Fitzgerald among her influences, alongside JUNGLE and Thee Sacred Souls.
These references establish a field of interest, rather than a claim to anyone else’s voice. Van identifies soul, blues, jazz and R&B as her vocal home.
Her artistic identity therefore rests on finding a fitting language for her songs, not on presenting genre history as costume.
That search also has a social foundation. After keeping music to herself for years, Van began sharing it with people she regarded as friends and confidants. Producer Mark Calderone became a central partner because their tastes aligned.
His role combines structure, experimentation and introductions to other players. Friendship here is a working condition: it gives Van room to attempt things beyond her usual habits while keeping trust intact.
The entire EP took shape at Calderone’s Apt Sea Sound in Toronto. The former Broadview-area location combined a recording studio, tattoo parlour and event space, so its identity exceeded the recording booth.
Although it no longer occupies that address, its collaborative role remains part of this record’s history. On “I’m A Vine”, Tom Moffett contributes horns and Alex St Kitts plays bass.
Their participation gives the project a concrete ensemble character, consistent with Van’s belief in relying on others.
“Moving Picture Show” brings that idea into Toronto’s cultural life. Inspired by TIFF50, it honours the Toronto International Film Festival and Van’s grandfather, its only living founder.
Dan Dwoskin helped her finish composing the song after she contacted him following the festival’s opening night. They wrote and played together in basement music rooms at Roy Thomson Hall.
The song subsequently reached the opening of a Men In Film TIFF afterparty.
There is an apt connection here to cinema’s relationship between the frame and everything outside it. An audience sees the finished image, but collective effort makes that image possible.
Likewise, this song’s history places family memory beside present-day collaboration. Its significance lies in those relationships, rather than in borrowed cinematic grandeur.
Van’s tribute recognises an institution through the people who sustain its meaning, making cultural continuity a personal concern.
The EP release show extended that network. Dwoskin played and sang, joined by Emily Steinwall on saxophone and Jeremiah Pick on electric guitar.
Corey Weinberg played drums, while Peter Klaassen supplied bass. These are live-performance credits, but they also clarify the project’s community-minded setting.
Van’s recorded work belongs to an ongoing exchange between people, rather than an isolated studio exercise.
The closing track, “Take Your Light Down”, makes a particularly clear production decision. Van retained a raw, one-take studio demo featuring a drum beat and a single microphone.
Calderone plays guitar, and she sings. Because the recording preserves a shared performance, its meaning resides partly in the act of making it.
The vocal’s role is direct participation in that moment, rather than an occasion to claim technical spectacle.
Van links this choice to doubts about authenticity amid AI-generated content. Yet rawness is not automatically an artistic virtue. Its value here comes from how the method serves her intention: keeping an instance of human connection intact.
The modest recording setup gives that intention a specific form. For listeners drawn to intimate soul and songwriting about grief, this closing gesture offers a reason to engage beyond genre familiarity.
“Miles On It” also ties emotional endurance to environmental care. Van challenges short-term savings that create lasting harm, asking for attention to what already deserves protection.
Her hope therefore carries obligations as well as comfort. If resilience means accepting support and caring for vulnerable life, what might we preserve by refusing to face loss alone?
