KURATED NO. 250
VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL 48
Featured Act
• Margaret Glaspy: Edgy Electric Riffs to Acoustic Finesse
The 5-song EP The Sun Doesn’t Think was recorded last year.
An acoustic set, it contrasts with the plugged in 2023
album, Echo the Diamond and previous work.
New York-based Margaret Glaspy will help open the Vancouver Folk Music Festival playing on Friday’s Mainstage on July 18.
Contents
• PLAYLIST: The Sun Doesn’t Think 5-song EP on Spotify
• ONE SONG VIDEO: Get Back / Live with Norah Jones (3:38 mins)
• LIVE: On KEXP Radio / Nov. 2023 (25 mins)
A fabulous all-electric set with her 3-piece band featuring 5 songs from 2023 album Echo the Diamond.
A preview of some of what she’ll be playing at VFMF
• ESSAY: Margaret Glaspy on Substack: NOWADAYS: Karma and Comparison
• INTERVIEW: May 25, 2025 Gable Music Ventures: Skipping School With Margaret Glaspy
• LYRIC: The Sun Doesn’t Think
• VANCOUVER FOLK MUSIC FESTIVAL – Check it out below including the full weekend schedule
Glaspy describes herself as a “total fiddler” in her teens until she switched to songwriting and playing guitar. She covers a wide musical range from electric to acoustic sounds
EDGY ELECTRIC RIFFS TO ACOUSTIC FINESSE
Literate musician Glaspy knows her way around a lyric and the fret board
Margaret Glaspy’s crunchy guitar riffs are superb. Her erudite lyrics offer the occasional brazen aside. Her dexterous vocals can be intense and articulate. And that’s just half the picture.
In her teens she was a “total fiddler” (her words) until she learned guitar from her older brother and started writing songs. A stint at Boston’s renowned Berklee College of Music taught her the musical theory that’s informed three strong albums and five EPs since 2012.
She thrives on the intricacies of musical composition. “I remember being fascinated with Bach chorales, studying voice leading and basic contrapuntal movement, and getting that in my blood to see how I could employ that on the guitar, ” she told Acoustic Guitar magazine last summer.
That fascination explains her recent EP – a five-song solo acoustic recording debut, The Sun Doesn’t Think. “In returning to the acoustic guitar, there’s a feeling of pushing my own boundaries,” she explains.
“And in exploring the acoustic guitar onstage, there’s a reminder of how acoustic functions apart from electric. You would think that electric would be the most volatile instrument you could find. But really, acoustic guitar has all these wild and woolly aspects that are challenging and fun to play with. There’s an intensity to it that I find arresting.”
Glaspy’s previous work has typically displayed a tough to tender range (compare Echo the Diamond’s raunchy and frenetic Female Brain to the poignant and wistful Memories.) However the simplicity and pull of acoustic experimentation is bound to play a role in future songs and will probably be part of her Festival set.
At the Festival
Glaspy is an intriguing and committed musician. Her one-hour performance on the Festival’s Friday night Mainstage holds promise of something special – certainly intensity and finesse.
Maybe more.
Lyric
The Sun Doesn’t Think
I glued my ear to his door, just to hear his radio pour out
And leave all my clothes on the floor, and look up at her posters of No Doubt
Then oldest, the middlest and I was just the littlest
The sun doesn’t think, it just shines
My heart just beats, it doesn’t mind
What you did, or what you do
It just loves you
They were trying to test him in school, but he would only test the limits
A man with a plan he said, I won’t be needing algebra or physics
But he knew every song, after hearing it once
Isn’t that more than enough?
The sun doesn’t think, it just shines
My heart just beats, it doesn’t mind
What you did, or what you do
It just loves you
And her hair, spiral like a staircase
I’d only seen in movies
And she’d take her pencil to a piece of paper
And she would draw clear through me
Oh the sun doesn’t think, it just shines
My heart just beats, it doesn’t mind
What you did, or what you do
It just loves you
Oh the sun doesn’t think, it just shines
My heart just beats, it doesn’t mind
Margaret Glaspy: ready
About Festival 48
WHEN
The 48th Annual Vancouver Folk Music Festival runs from July 18 to 20
TICKETS
Tickets are available at The Festival
HEAR
Listen to the excellent 42-song Festival sampler curated by artistic director Fiona Black
SEE
The full weekend schedule
VIEW
The full artist line-up
21 June 2025
