Alt-pop artist young friend featured as Spotify’s RADAR Canada Artist of the Month for October 2022
October 7, 2022 BY Jason Currell
After the successful release of his debut album, HOW DID WE GET HERE?, Vancouver alt-pop artist young friend, celebrates his inclusion in Spotify’s RADAR Canada Emerging Artist program. The franchise helps key artists make an impact with their debut defining release by deepening their connection with fans.
young friend – aka Drew Tarves — is currently featured on the cover of the RADAR Canada playlist for the month of October and can be seen on an exclusive billboard in downtown Toronto. In two short years, the 22-year-old has gone from bedroom upstart to rising indie star amassing millions of streams worldwide.
HOW DID WE GET HERE? is out now via Nettwerk. Listen here.
Listen & Share Spotify’s RADAR Canada playlist:
Drew Tarves’ music as young friend feels classic and immediate all at once, capturing the summer-sun nostalgia of post-adolescence while diving deep into a pool of self-reflection. The songs on his new EP, HOW DID WE GET HERE?, act as a practical mission statement for this talented singer-songwriter—showcasing Tarves’ innate tunefulness and lovingly slack croon, which adorns this collection of wistful guitar pop that’s as thought-provoking as it is purely transportative.
HOW DID WE GET HERE? is the culmination of Tarves’ own musical journey. A trained dancer for most of his adolescence, the 22-year-old Vancouver native switched artistic disciplines after spending time jamming with his musician friends. “I found out very quickly that I loved it,” he recalls. “It was my favorite thing to do.” Armed with a guitar and a laptop, Tarves started hashing out early songwriting attempts on Garage Band as he found his own style that suited him: “It was all about experimenting while trying to find what worked for me.”
After releasing the buzz-building and rap-leaning mixtape yours kindly, in 2019, Tarves continued to refine his sound—drawing from the intimate indie rock of inspirations like Bon Iver, Phoebe Bridgers, and Andy Shauf—with a series of singles released over the last two years. HOW DID WE GET HERE? was largely written and recorded over the last year with the help of producers Aldn and marinelli (Wallace, Spill Tab). It captures the young friend project in a state of looking back while charting a new path forward. “I love that feeling of nostalgia, and I’m constantly searching for those old feelings throughout my life,” Tarves explains. “There’s something very beautiful about them that I’m attracted to.”
