Päter, real name Parmida Kakavand, is a Toronto, Canada-based alternative pop artist who has featured a couple of times before on this blog.
By Graeme Smith
Feature photo by Laura-Lynn Petrick
In September last year, Jane introduced her to us by including her song Nicotine Hallelujah in her alternative country round up Bandit Highway. I followed that up a month later by sharing her track Moonshine.
Now she’s back with her debut album. Called 4-7 Company (four to seven company), it dwells on a time often overlooked in music, the early evening. These are the hours between the day and the night, lived out in solitude and lost in thought, or at least they are in Parmida’s case. We find out a lot about her in this album and she shares it all with a brave vulnerability. We hear about mental blocks, generational pressures, and the fear of missing out.
It’s an album that’s been two years in the making, created with Howard Redekopp and a team of musicians in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Musically, it spans from the atmospherically stripped-back (Clock Strikes, Fear of the Dead, Every Waking Hour) to the punchy and upbeat (Nicotine Hallelujah, Something // Way), all held together through Päter’s unique point of view and sound.
Both Nicotine Hallelujah and Moonshine feature on the record, giving us early and mid-record highlights through their respective anthemic and expansive country rock and gentle, dreamy pop. Other standouts includes the groovy and move-inducing introspection of Something // Way, the immersive and cinematic Catching Cold, and the slow-building psychedelic catharsis of title track 4-7 Company.
Put simply, this debut is stunning. With it, Parmida gives us a labour of love. It’s rich with some classic song writing and brutally honest lyrics. It’s more evidence, if we needed it, that Päter is one to watch.
If you happen to be in Toronto next week, Päter will be putting on an album release show at The Monarch Tavern on 11 April. Tickets are available here.
You can buy 4-7 Company on vinyl or as a digital album via Päter’s Bandcamp page, and can check it out below.
