Nashville-based indie folk artist Mia Van de Loo releases new single ‘upstream‘, a yearning track fitting for a waning summer. Reminiscent of beabadoobee’s earlier discography, Van de Loo employs minimal instrumentation and feather-light vocals to create a love letter to everyone who’s ever struggled with feeling out of place.
Van de Loo found inspiration for the song when she revisited her diary entries from when she was fifteen. The spirit of teenage angst was ever present, but through it, self-realisation ensued:
“I expressed my identity, and I idolised a few of my peers because it seemed like they’d discovered about themselves what I hadn’t, ” she shares. “I took lyrics word for word from that entry to write ‘upstream’. When it came time to produce the track, my inspiration tracks leaned highly engineered and eclectic. But it wasn’t until we stripped it to its honest roots, like a campfire confessional, that the song really made sense — how ironic. Isn’t that the solution to self-discovery at the end of the day?”
Van de Loo managed to take an anxious 15-year-old’s thoughts and matters of the heart and transform them into a folk song, with beautiful cello and expressive guitar accompaniment. By giving her teenage self a chance to speak her mind, Van de Loo also reassures the listener: despite all the trials life gives you, and the inner turmoils that entail, it’s still ‘upstream’ that you should swim.
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