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May 09, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Jake Capistran

Portland-based singer/songwriter Henry Chadwick is back tomorrow with his new EP, Leaving. Chadwick first debuted with his 2016 EP, Guest At Home, and his 2018 full-length record, Marlin Fisher. Most recently, he followed with a 2019 EP, The President of Make Believe, and his 2021 sophomore LP, We All Start Again. Along the way, his music has touched on slacker rock, indie, and power pop, hinting at influences like Wilco or Elliot Smith.

“I started recording this EP as I was moving out of state from my old house in Ben Lomond, CA in the Santa Cruz Mountains to my new home in Portland, OR,” said Chadwick. “Leaving documents a time of a lot of change and inward thought. Writing and recording it was really sort of therapeutic and felt super good. I tracked the bulk of it in my new basement home studio which I’m calling The Washateria Recording Studio, which also lends the name to the indie label I started this year, Washateria Recordings. I feel like Leaving is my most consistent-sounding release where all the songs share a similar theme and feel. It’s not necessarily a concept album by design but listening back it kind of feels that way.”

Today, ahead of the EP’s release Chadwick is sharing an early listen to one of the record’s highlights, “That’s On You,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“That’s On You” is a breezy ballad colored by sun-dappled guitar chords and a shimmering solo. At moments, the track recalls the chiming and swooning side of bands like Big Star, delivering plaintive vocal melodies wrapped in a sunny sheen. The results are sweet, but also winding and meditative. Chadwick’s lyrics find him reflecting on selfishness and bitterness, examining the tendency to blame your problems on somebody else: “When the bridges you burned won’t get you across / And the stones that you threw started gathering moss / If you still can’t connect the dots / That’s on you.”

Chadwick says of the track, “An idea sprung to me while I was waiting in traffic and someone was speeding past everyone and honking. We had all been patient and growing less patient as you do when stuck in traffic, but something about seeing someone react in an uncool way about it made me at first get mad at him, and then sort of think about how that’s such a tendency most of us have - to feel like everything bad is happening TO US in particular when really there are a ton of other people waiting in the same traffic. That was the spark, and when I got home, it all sort of all came together.”

Check out the song below. The Leaving EP is out on May 10th.