Vancouver indie riser young friend delivers his debut album, Motorcycle Sound Effects, drawing us into an intimate, genre-hopping and dreamy soundscape packed with all the messy, exhilarating emotions that come with finding yourself. An immersive project, thick with details, longing, uncertainty, and the weight of every fleeting moment that makes youth feel so urgent, the album is a love letter to growing up.
Encapsulating the push and pull of wanting to be someone, wanting to be anywhere else, chasing highs and crashing just as hard, the album flits across everything from love and lust to bravado, anxiety and regret swirling around a coming-of-age core. Complimented and elevated by striking visuals, the tracks are enriched by his signature indie touch – rushing with nostalgia framed by infectious, cinematic, and earnest sensibilities.
Speaking of the album, he says, “It's about the people you encounter and the experiences that make you into the person that you are. I really wanted to capture all the sides of the coin: the shitty sides; the side where I was wrong; the side where I did the right thing and it still didn’t work out, the side where something is new and exciting and it's all you can think about, all of it.”
Co-produced with David Marinelli, Motorcycle Sound Effects pulls from a sprawling range of influences without ever losing its identity. It moves through grungy guitars, stripped-back folk, early 2000s sun-drenched indie pop, and even a full-blown country track, each song playing like a different version of the same story. The album never settles into one sound —it’s dynamic, unpredictable, full of costume changes and plot twists. Some songs are loud and brash, others are quiet in the way a realization creeps up on you. It’s that mix of self-awareness, unfiltered confessions and reckless sincerity that makes young friend’s music feel bigger than just another indie debut.
With a style that lands somewhere between ROLE MODEL’s effortlessly raw, restless energy and a coming-of-age movie you wish you lived in, young friend captures the feeling of growing up with a thoughtful tenderness that feels intensely intimate and brilliantly expansive all at once.
Since breaking out with his 2021 single “PINCH ME,” young friend who has spent the last few years carving out a space in the Gen-Z indie scene, now establishes himself as a powerhouse talent capable of evoking strong emotions within us with his delicate sonic quality.
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