The best road trips leave room for an unexpected turning. Tara Van’s Miles On It has that sense of adventure: the songs start simply, as though leaving something behind, before finding routes you might not have anticipated. Yet you always feel her hands on the steering wheel. Across four tracks, the Toronto artist considers what it takes to keep going when optimism feels difficult to justify. Love, grief and concern for the world travel together here. The freedom she offers has room for all that baggage, and for the possibility that the journey might change your relationship with it. Recorded with producer Mark Calderone at Toronto’s Apt Sea Sound, the EP grew from a circle of friends and collaborators. That matters to its outlook. Van spent years keeping her music private, and sharing it involved finding people she trusted. “Moving Picture Show”, a tribute to the Toronto International Film Festival and her grandfather’s part in founding it, connects personal affection with a city’s cultural life. Closing track “Take Your Light Down” brings things closer still: a single-take recording of Van and Calderone sharing one microphone. Keeping that version feels consistent with a project that values the people and moments we can easily overlook while looking ahead. Miles On It finds its most appealing idea in that tension between departure and attachment. Following Van around the next bend feels inviting, especially when she makes freedom seem compatible with having something worth coming back for, and people worth taking along for the ride.