“An EP willing to grope into the messy heart of life in order to hold aloft its love and truths.” That’s how we described Nate Terepka‘s Not Yet earlier this month. The Portland, Oregon songwriter inadvertently charts the rise and decline of a relationship in close to real time, the songs appearing in the order they were written. Each offers a glimpse into a new stage of the relationship’s arc, from the giddy soar of its ascendance to the loss of momentum at the zenith, and then of course the ultimate fall.
Thus shimmering opener ‘Find Me Where You Look’ is vibrant with the possibilities of burgeoning love, while introspective follow-up ‘The Woods’ contemplates the past from a position of apparent strength. “A few years back I did an exercise where I took a several-hours-long night walk in the woods of Maine and thought through every year of my life from birth to present in chronological order, remembering as much as I could,” as Terepka explained. “I was surprised by how many forgotten memories were stirred up and came out of it with a feeling of empathy for my younger self, as well as a strong desire to not repeat past mistakes.”
But looks closely and the song shows the finest of cracks, fissures inevitably tested by the weight of any serious love. And with these flaws comes the foreshadowing of an eventual fracture. “I know that you love me now / Makes me want to shake off the rest of these ghosts,” as Terepka sings, though ghosts are nothing if not persistent. By the time ‘The Field’ rolls around, there’s a cloud over things. A gentle piano line adds an undeniably romantic tone yet there is disquiet too. The sense of communication beginning to fail. The line between two people glitching. The ominously titled ‘Silence’ follows with something like desperation, as though things are starting to slip through the fingers and all there’s left to do is grasp blindly at what you can.
Closer ‘Saying It’ serves as a fitting conclusion. A “very direct breakup song” as Terepka describes it, which came together quickly with the urgency of the present moment. “When my relationship fell apart, I wasn’t sure I could release the love songs on this record,” Terepka continues. “Then this song suddenly came together and finished the story. It completes the record and grounds it in present reality.” And direct the track certainly is, offering a picture of separation in all of its mundane torture. The cracks now open, the fracture complete. “Golden hour with my dog / Trampling down this forest floor,” as the opening verse plays. “While you grab the rest of your boxes / With your parents helping you out /Six years on the last of you is gone from our house.”
It was so good
It dug into my heart
It turned my whole world into a garden
It dried out under the lightSaying goodbye
Not Yet is out now and available from the Nate Terepka Bandcamp page.
