With ‘Dreaming the Dark,’ Tamaryn’s voice — and lyrics — channel newfound intensity
In the Silver Lake apartment of Tamaryn — one of the most underrated artists in the world of gothic-synthpop — a TV screen is always on a loop featuring classic ’80s music icons. The day before a recent interview it was Bryan Ferry day. Today it’s Annie Lennox.
“It’s like a little chapel in here,” she says.
The space is filled with trinkets, tarot cards, stained glass and prayer candles. Her pet birds chirp with excitement overhead while her dog – Tennessee – rests on the couch. On her fourth record, “Dreaming the Dark,” due March 22, the song “You’re Adored” is about Tennessee. He’s not long for this world.
Since 2010, New Zealand-born Tamaryn (real name: Tamaryn Brown) has released three LPs that share in her love of the ’80s and ’90s underground: everything from shoegaze to industrial. Yet her music isn’t overshadowed by nostalgia, nor does the artist define music by decades.
“It’s a language that’s always there to work with. I don’t care about doing something that hasn’t been done before. It’s the craft that fascinates me,” she says.
“Dreaming the Dark,” the incumbent to her 2015 album “Cranekiss.” is her most pop-friendly. “I had a joke I was gonna call it: ‘The Best of Tamaryn,’” she says.
On the record there are flashes of “Speak & Spell”-era Depeche Mode, Kate Bush histrionics, even ’80s band Ministry. But rather than drown out her voice as she’s done before, this time her truth is brought to the fore. “I always had my hair in my face, I’ve always tried to create something bigger than me to transcend the mundane,” she says. “This time I’m trying to step into my power.”
The focus is on immense vocals. In recent years, Tamaryn’s been most interested in rappers (also, Tears for Fears) – “stuff with really ambitious vocal tricks, I wanted to try that. If I’m going to be a singer I should really do it.”
The experience of writing, recording and touring “Cranekiss” was emotionally hefty, and the main reason it’s taken four years to return with a new collection. Tamaryn was unsure she’d ever make another record. “One-hundred percent,” she says. She’d begun to take on other jobs, went to cosmetology school and explored soundtrack and session work.
“It felt like no matter what music I made, I’d hit a ceiling where I couldn’t turn it into a career. That stressed me out. I wanted to get a trade, assimilate into society, stop being a loser band person,” she says. “Now I don’t care about that.”
Tamaryn took time to live her life and her love of songwriting beckoned her back to focusing on music. “I think of songwriting as the thing that lets me transcend capitalism, the prisons of day-to-day reality. There has to be a state of gnosis, of letting go and not being in total control to have that magic.”
The record took only three weeks to create with long-standing collaborator Jorge Elbrecht. It features Tamaryn’s most intense songwriting. She doesn’t pre-meditate and describes lyrics as revealing themselves to her by way of “spiritual channeling.” Tracks like “Terrified,” “Victim Complex” and the title cut are fueled by grief and trauma. The album is dedicated to photographer Matt Irwin, who took his own life in 2016. The title and titular track are inspired by the last conversation she had with her old friend.
“It’s about overcoming your own inner strife and suffering to create. I guess at the end of it he ended up being my darkest friend. I think he’d love it.”
The lines on “Victim Complex” may appear to chime with the women’s movement (“When you hurt me, the scream is for everyone”), but they’re rather nuanced.
“It’s almost about slitting your wrists in front of people,” Tamaryn says. “It’s so melodramatic and self-aware that it’s almost amusing. Are you seeing your own suffering through a darkened lens of your trauma? Is the world against you or is it a classic gothic sensibility of leaning into suffering as a comforting place?”
You wonder if her victim complex is dwindling? “No,” she laughs. “I’m living it in real time. Creating a record is like manifesting who you wanna be. Then you step into that and become it. I’m still processing.”
With every album, Tamaryn builds a larger cult following. “There’s a divide between success and actually having a mark on music,” she says.
When Tamaryn relocated from New York to L.A. several years ago she didn’t know she’d find such peace in L.A.’s music community. Excitingly, she’s been writing with Sky Ferreira this past year for songs on her forthcoming second album. “I can only say things that she’s Ttweeted,” she says of its clandestine nature, adding that Ferreira is “making more challenging choices. She’s had every opportunity you could imagine but she’s chosen to go on her own artistic journey. I have a lot of respect for her. I wanna support her in any way I can as a collaborator and friend.”
Such mentors can be few and far between in the music industry, and Tamaryn has been at it long enough to know what’s worth protecting when it comes to creativity.
“I have no regrets about any of my music,” she says. “But any type of desperation is the biggest reason I wouldn’t want to make music. It’s supposed to be a sacred thing that you can use as a tool to understand the world. Why would you want to diminish that by forcing yourself to be anything other than your purest essence? We humans have so few things. We have to slave away, pay the bills, try to understand mating and power dynamics — that’s a nightmare. What do we have? We have animals and we have art. We gotta keep it safe.”
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Tamaryn
When: 8 p.m. April 26
Where: The Echoplex, 1154 Glendale Blvd.
Tickets: $13 — $17
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