It's Springtime In Ontario, and Kaethler is ready to deliver. Read more below.
Thomas Kaethler’s first full-length record, Eleven, arrives today in affiliation with MorningStar Records, and it sounds exactly like the story that produced it; half prairie folk, half late-night laptop glow, stitched together largely by dares and secondhand instruments. Kaethler grew up mostly in Manitoba and now lives in Orillia, Ontario, but the geography that matters most to the album is the path each song took from chance moment to finished track.
The oldest thread dates to 2020, when pandemic lockdowns left him pacing around the house and ordering a modest USB microphone so he could send his Oma musical postcards. At that point his arsenal was a rescued accordion (a friend’s payment for helping her move) and a ukulele he’d tried to give away as a gift only to have it handed straight back. Those odd couple instruments became the basis of an online songwriting challenge with collaborator Purple Bird, which in turn inspired Kaethler's very first original, Houseplant Song. Not long after, Kaethler and his sister would team up to write the album's first and fifth tracks, To The River and Matt The Treeplanter, respectively. Those pieces helped to shape the mood of the record’s first half; accordion drones, soft ukulele strums, and lyrics that feel like diary entries passed across a kitchen table.
Another interesting point in the record comes from an unsuspecting road trip. Driving to a haskap berry farm, Kaethler and a friend kept riffing on Turcot Road beneath them until a hook emerged, eventually leading to a song named after the road itself. For his birthday in 2024, a music producer cousin arranged a studio day to oversee the recording of Turcot Road, and a remixed rendition titled Haskap Song. Those two tracks sit deeper in the record, marking the shift from unplugged notes to lightly electronic production; drum programming, vocal filters, and the gentle throb of software synths.
Kaethler’s only formal training was three reluctant years of piano lessons that ended with a stubborn ten-year-old’s promise he wouldn’t regret quitting. On Eleven he sneaks that back in on his own terms, using simple figures as connective tissue during the more synthetic closing stretch. It doesn't overpower; rather it's a simple nod to something he once walked away from and eventually reclaimed.
The genre drift across the runtime isn’t a deliberate statement so much as an honest reflection of Kaethler’s process; early songs written with acoustic tools because that’s what was on hand, later songs experimenting with software once the hardware limitations eased. Folk gives way to quietly pulsing electronica not because he set out to fuse styles, but because the timeline itself demanded it.
The album's title Eleven isn't necessarily a literal track count, but rather a reflection of the number of songs Kaethler wrote or collaborated on in order to shape the record we see today. Every collaboration that pushed him forward- Purple Bird’s challenge, his sister’s lost bet, a cousin’s studio gift- sets them in one place, unpolished edges intact.
Released today, the album is available through the MorningStar Records Webstore, and will reach streaming services in the future.
Order the CD or LP here.