In September 2024, I became aware of Valley Taylor through their Modest Mouse, Pavement and Bon Iver-inspired debut album, Lifetime of Unending Joy, a record that I found to balance “classic alternative influences with originality.”

By Graeme Smith

2025 sees them returning to our pages through Sunlight Filtered Through the Tree in My Window, an emotional collection inspired by a poignant moment in their home studio.

“I was in my home studio one afternoon, lost in the process of writing, when I looked up and saw the sunlight filtering through the tree outside my window,” Valley explains. “It was such a simple, fleeting moment, but it carried this overwhelming sense of nostalgia and clarity. That image felt like a metaphor for the entire album—how time moves through us, how beauty and meaning can be found in the smallest, most ordinary moments. It just stuck with me, and I knew it had to be the title.”

There’s certainly a sense of looking at life anew across the album’s ten tracks. Hopefulness is infused into bright numbers like Heartstrings, the romantic Eyes and almost ecclesiastical Hallelujah.

As with Lifetime of Unending Joy, Valley worked with Geoff Nelson to bring the album together. “Geoff brought so much depth to the guitar work, adding layers that made everything feel expansive,” they say. Additionally, longtime friend Devin Zamora was brought in. “Devin and I have been working together for so long that we have this unspoken understanding of where a song needs to go.”

The trio have recorded magic with Sunlight Filtered… and you get that sense right from the punchy, emotional, opening track Death Running. Valley counts Bon Iver and Coldplay among his influences. “There’s a warmth and intimacy in Bon Iver’s work that I really connect with, especially in the layered vocals and textures. Coldplay’s ability to create these soaring yet deeply personal moments definitely shaped some of the bigger dynamics on the album.” I have to agree, there is so much movement in each track yet we feel we are right there with them while we listen.

Meanwhile, an experimental approach, inspired by Radiohead, shines through in tracks like Rivers End, which pairs a bombastic instrumental with a melancholic vocal, and Sometimes My Cat Sits On My Head, which gives us the album’s most jangly moment. A looping rhythm provides the perfect bed over which Valley’s laidback vocals are poured. Prism closes the album with a beautifully layered moment that stirs thanks to its rises and falls.

Sunlight Filtered… is an album that, together with Lifetime of Unending Joy, marks Valley Taylor out as a special artist. I found it a joy to listen to.

I’ll leave the last word to Valley. “I hope people find something in this album that resonates with them. It was written from a very personal place, but I think these feelings are universal… thank you for taking the time to sit with it.”

Sunlight Filtered Through The Tree In My Window is out now and you can give it a listen below.