Amy van Keeken is a versatile artist, recognized as a singer, songwriter, and musician based in Vancouver, B.C. She acknowledges the significance of the ancestral, traditional, and unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. In addition to her singing and songwriting, Amy serves as a radio host and producer at CKUA Radio, contributing to the vibrant cultural scene in Alberta on Treaties 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10, where she has resided and worked for many decades. Keep reading for my thoughts on her debut EP, “Wave At Me”!
The EP opens with the title track, “Wave At Me”, a warm, inviting introduction to the themes that Amy will embrace through the album– and she sets the stage quite nicely here. The presentation is pleasant, heartwarming, with its simplistic themes in lyricism that find themselves approachable to anyone listening, paired with graceful harmonies and gentle percussion with the shakers that keep steady time throughout the track.
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Segueing into the second track, “We Cried On The Phone”, we see an evolution of Amy’s sound into more introspective, poignant themes, yet still retaining that flair that she set so well in the opening track. The gentle strums of the acoustic guitar blended with the smooth electrics and the synths in the background keep us engrossed quite well.
Now is a good time, I think, to touch on the lyricism in the album. The lyrics are well-thought out and executed very nicely indeed, with “Follow Me” being the star of the show here– with passages like “Through the day and through the night, you will be right by my side”, as well as on She Don’t Care About Time(written by the legendary Gene Clark), with “Hallways and staircases every day to climb, to go up to my white walled room out on the end of time”, displaying vivid imagery and quite effectively setting the imaginative headspace for the listener, so to speak. Overall, the themes in the lyrics do rather well to elevate the already sublime experience of the album. Well done!
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Some other things that stood out to me from the tracks include the vocal layering work from “She Don’t Care About Time”, with its gentle layering of the clean guitar riffs on top of the vocals and its clear soundstage, as well on the closer, “Follow Me”. The album, all in all, showcases a great unison in its sound and messaging, as well as in the thematic expressions, which I was left a fan of.
Check out “Wave At Me”, by Amy van Keeken here!
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Amy on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amyvankeeken/
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