Wallgrin’s layered musical world beckons anew to listeners via ‘Yet Again The Wheel Turns’ album release

Since the mid 2010s, Wallgrin – the stage name and archetypal persona for Vancouver-based art-pop musician and experimental songwriter Tegan Wahlgren – has been defying genres and electrifying audiences. Through visceral lyrics and a versatile style that refuses to be defined or contained, their music is layered, thematic, and deeply emotional. Love, sex, death, intimacy, loss, rage, and regret: Wallgrin’s offerings embrace these big ideas, and invite listeners into an immersive sound world unafraid to explore each in turn. Discorder Magazine once termed Wallgrin’s signature palette of raw vocals, electronics, fiddle, and other layered forces a “…powerful exploration of sound that defies genre.”

Recent album release art for Yet Again The Wheel Turns.

Thanks to a recent contribution from Amplify BC’s Career Development program, Wallgrin has been able to push evolving patterns of innovation even further. This support enabled a series of investments in the completion and marketing of their sophomore album, Yet Again The Wheel Turns. Released on October 14, 2022, the album represents the product of Wallgrin’s close collaboration with BC-based producer Harley Small. Significant contributions to the process also came from the late Vancouver-based sound engineer Olivia Quan, who passed away unexpectedly during the album’s final production stages in the Summer of 2022. Thematically, the album explores inevitability, nostalgia, recurring patterns in life, and the nature of existential threats. Having enjoyed a sold-out release party at The Fox Cabaret on October 22, 2022, with subsequent press and accolades likening its sound and style to to past offerings from art-pop visionaries like Kate Bush and Björk, Yet Again The Wheel Turns is now streaming and gaining airplay coast to coast to coast.

Reflecting on these successes, Wallgrin offers, “Thanks to [Amplify BC’s] funding, I was able to be much more ambitious and professional when going about the creation of this album. I hired various musicians to record bed tracks at Monarch Studios, put together a photo team to create album artwork and promo images, and hired digital marketers to promote the album, among other things. It felt so good to be able to properly compensate people for their work this time: especially those people of whom I’d asked many favours over the years.” 

What fuels and inspires Wallgrin’s creative innovations? How – and why –  did the Wallgrin persona first manifest? 

“I create music that I’d call art-pop or experimental pop: it’s catchy, but it’s more of a fantasy novel with several sequels, as opposed to a standalone, to-the-point essay. My music emerged out of a childhood spent playing Celtic fiddle tunes and singing in choirs, as well as through immersing myself in reading and writing adventure fantasy stories,” they recall.  

They continue, “I created Wallgrin as a way for me to explore these imaginary worlds through the abstraction of music. It’s certainly evolved over the past eight or nine years, and become a whole multi-disciplinary project. I intend for it to lean more into film and video work in the future.” 

Wallgrin in performance at The Fox Cabaret during the album release party for Yet Again The Wheel Turns.

As an artist that identifies as both Queer and non-binary, the path to comfortable self-acceptance in all facets of life has similarly evolved for Wallgrin. Their own journey has been one where imaginary worlds, powerful archetypes, and formidable role models drawn from fantasy, science fiction, and other mythologies have each provided their own kind of solace. Wallgrin maintains a sense of responsibility for their listeners navigating their own respective journeys: in particular, those from underrepresented groups and demographics. Wallgrin’s work is replete with visual, musical, and thematic callbacks to these same archetypes; most often, accompanied by messages of resilience, self-sufficiency, and survival in the face of inexorable challenge and change.

Wallgrin affirms, “I hope I can be one of those artists whose work feels like a refuge for people who find themselves outside the norm. Growing up as a Queer, non-binary kid (who hadn’t figured it all out at the time), I know how important it is to have those role models that you can identify with. I have a long-term vision for how my albums and their imagery might progress over time. I’ve really tried to create a cohesive world around my music. I hope anyone who stumbles across my work will feel invited into that world, and that it gives them permission to uncover some forgotten feelings.” 

Strategic and creative world-building has been a powerful element of Wallgrin’s continued success. As a unified whole, Yet Again The Wheel Turns offers a series of iterative musical ideas that reach squarely into the listener’s psyche, and provoke deeply individual reflections and responses. However, the thematic seeds of Wallgrin’s latest musical journey ultimately trace themselves back to their debut album, Bird/Alien, which took flight in 2018.  

Concept art for Bird/Alien’s album release.

Wallgrin continues, “Certainly, [Bird/Alien] was the place from which this current album grew. It’s where I essentially learned how to even go about making a whole album, and I’ve drawn a lot on that process as a framework. I was 22, and didn’t understand anything about grants, and so the only things I could outsource were the photo shoot, graphic design, and mastering. Beyond that, it was an entirely self-driven project. By the time I’d finished making the album itself, alongside my final year of university, I was burnt out, and stumped at the prospect of promoting it. I hadn’t a clue how to do it. That’s something I knew I had to put more emphasis on this time: if I want to have a chance at building Wallgrin into something of a sustainable career, promotion and marketing are key.” 

As an artist by choice and an entrepreneur by design, Wallgrin has come to appreciate the value of careful planning, project management, and strategic marketing to sustaining a long-term career in the music industry. They also believe wholeheartedly in the impact that effective mentorship can have on long-term goals in concert halls, recording studios, and elsewhere in one’s career. When invited to reflect on an individual that has made such a personal impact, Wallgrin’s thoughts turn naturally to integrative voice-work therapist and vocal coach Viviane Houle, with whom they have enjoyed a close professional kinship since 2019.    

Recent Wallgrin promotional art.

“I think that the vocal freedom I explored with [Viviane] really influenced my sound, continuing to this day. Most of our lessons consisted of improvising, digging into the hearts of our voices, and delving into whatever sounds came out of us that day. She would sometimes tell me to lean into the parts of my voice that cracked or screeched: don’t shy away from them. Investigate them; find out what’s in there. She helped me learn how to not judge my voice, and to become at ease with those sounds that used to make me cringe, or feel silly. Maybe you could call it ‘vocal neutrality’: it’s just sound. There’s nothing wrong or right about it, nor ugly or beautiful. The voice is just an instrument like any other, and yet there is something so much more vulnerable about it because of it being directly a part of our human bodies, and a core part of our identities as individuals.” 

Hand in hand with this personal growth comes a strengthened sense of self that is rooted in empathy for artists and art. It is in this same spirit that Wallgrin’s deep care for their fellow creatives similarly shines through. When asked what advice they’d offer others considering applying to an Amplify BC program in support of a project of their own design, Wallgrin pauses, considers carefully, and offers:  

“Especially if you’re applying for larger grant amounts, I would genuinely recommend hiring a grant writer. It’s a skill in and of itself, and if you feel overwhelmed by grant writing, it’s certainly worth getting some help, and much more likely to pay off in the end. And, before even applying, it’s vital that you have a clear vision of your project from start to finish. It may change along the way, and that’s fine, but you need to be convinced of your project first and foremost before anyone else will be!” 

You can discover more about Wallgrin, and get to know their music, here.  

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Photos and artwork courtesy of Mackenzie Walker, Raunie Mae Baker, and Wallgrin.