Born into a family full of artists, actors, musicians and songwriters, Tara MacLean has been surrounded by people with an unstoppable urge to create ever since she can remember. With her cult debut “Silence” (1997), the Canadian singer-songwriter was already showing in the late 90s that not only did her artistic instincts come as naturally to her as walking and talking in the first place: she was also able to take these skills to higher levels. This has also allowed MacLean to produce a non-stop stream of rock-solid pop diamonds over the past 25 years. She mixes folk elements and touches of trip-hop, as on “Passenger” (2000), and then turns to a reduced poetics style like on the album that pays homage to the songwriters of the East Coast, “Atlantic Blue” (2017), or goes bitter-sweet and packed with yearning as seen on last year’s “Sparrow” (2023). In all her guises, Tara MacLean is a pop icon for anyone who in the past twenty years has managed to look past the obvious and see this music not just as a product of the industry but as a wellspring of wonderful songwriting.