In 2024, 32-year-old indie folk singer-songwriter Tasha Viets-VanLear, who goes by Tasha, moved to New York to continue her role as Nacna in "Illinoise," choreographer Justin Peck's Tony-winning adaptation of Sufjan Stevens's album about Illinois. But now that her own fourth album, "You Are Spring!," is out on Bayonet Records, she's spending more and more time in Ridgewood.
Viets-VanLear, who's from Chicago, came up in the local rap and R&B community that produced artists like Chance the Rapper and Noname, which also intersected with indie rockers like Twin Peaks. "We were all kind of united by growing up there and knowing each other since we were teenagers," she told Hell Gate. In 2016, she started putting out her own music under the mononym "Tasha," and released two full-length albums before she was cast in "Illinoise"—which was, ironically, being performed in upstate New York, at Bard College.
"I was just beginning to feel like I needed a break from Chicago, and I honestly didn't think it was going to happen," Viets-VanLear said. "I felt a lot of momentum internally, but I didn't feel that matched by the city, and New York really returned that to me." The production moved to an Off-Broadway run at the Park Avenue Armory in 2024 before moving to Broadway later that same year, and the other musicians cast in "Illinoise" were also players in New York's experimental music scene. "The musicians I was meeting and the friends I was making were just making me feel like there was going to be a lot there for me," Viets-VanLear added.
In September of 2024, after "Illinoise" closed on Broadway, she released her third album, and immediately started writing the songs that ended up on "You Are Spring!"
"Moving to New York was, emotionally, a huge part of this record, and what the songs mean, and where they came from," she said. "My experience in the city was immediately different upon finishing the show and moving to Ridgewood than it was prior to that."
Viets-VanLear began performing in the Ridgewood indie-rock-meets-experimental-art-music scene, replacing Broadway with venues like Cassette. That's where she met the musicians in the band Babas, opening for her at her album release show at Union Pool on Saturday.
She even recorded the album's clarinet parts in her Ridgewood apartment. "I still haven't had a confrontation with my neighbor yet, and I'm honestly waiting for it," Viets-VanLear said. "I generally try to be respectful. I mean, hopefully he's not someone who works from home, but I'm not playing at any odd hours. I try to keep it to like the middle of the afternoon."
Still, she conceded, "he can certainly hear me."
I asked Viets-VanLear what the best things to do in New York City in July are, in Ridgewood and beyond.