Dutch singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Tamara van Esch will release her long-awaited new studio album Gracie on May 1st on her own label Indieland Records, and in Japan via Sign-Pole. Tamara worked quietly on the album for twelve years with British composer Iain Chambers (Langham Research Centre, Rubbish Music, Persistence of Sound), and several international producers worked on the songs, each bringing their own influence to the compositions. Mastering was done by Wessel Oltheten (Spinvis, Personal Trainer). The new single Telescope is out now.
Tamara van Esch makes eclectic indie-folk in the spirit of This Is the Kit and Mitski: intimate, dreamy, and gently idiosyncratic. In her fragile but sometimes sharply observant lyrics, she discovers the extraordinary in the everyday. On her debut album Tussen Lagen, she moved listeners with hopeful stories based on interviews with psychologically vulnerable people, warmly wrapped in poetic melodies and subtle instrumentation.
With her upcoming album Gracie, Tamara is once again pushing her boundaries. Gracie, her 200-year-old alter ego, takes you to the year 2045; a future in which humans and robots live in harmony, identities shift through digitization, and immortality is no longer science fiction. The tracks highlight different aspects of Gracie's life, often with a critical view of the past and present. On The Sea, she reflects modestly but sharply on how humanity exploits and pollutes nature. The song Square commemorates the Rabaa massacre in Egypt in 2013, in which approximately thousand people were killed during a peaceful protest. The songs show how events from the past and from a fictional future remain relevant, regardless of the time in which we live. In this way, the album offers a new perspective on current reality and invites the listener to look as an outsider at exactly those things that are often ignored in complex times such as these.
On this album, Tamara reveals a new musical side of herself by combining styles reminiscent of Björk and St. Vincent, sometimes with a raw punk edge, pulsating synthesizers, and haunting choirs. Her voice has a wider range and is distorted and layered with intense, surprising effects, bringing different characters to life; from a singing robot to vulnerable, human emotions. The lyrics are dark but also hopeful, giving the music softness an warmth. Tamara sounds different on this album than before: experimental, expressive, and with a narrative power that invites you to step fully into the world of Gracie. Gracie invites you to step fully into a world that feels both futuristic and deeply human.
Just as Gracie effortlessly moves from 1845 through the present to 2045 in her stories, the telescope in the new single acts as a visual bridge through time and space. Faced with the infinity and timeless wonders of nature in the universe, everyday life takes on an almost negligible meaning. Tamara explains: “The first time I looked through a telescope and saw a small red dot moving across the sky (which turned out to be Mars) I was struck by the vastness of the universe. That moment changed the way I viewed my own self-criticism. Instead of constantly looking inward and trying to improve myself, I realized the importance of stepping back and paying attention to others, and to what becomes visible when seen from a distance.”
Tamara van Esch has previously toured The Netherlands, Europe, and Japan. In the spring she will tour in Germany and afterwards present Gracie in the Netherlands and Belgium:
- 29-4 De Nijverheid, Utrecht
- 07-5 Willem Twee, Den Bosch
- 10-5 Cinetol, Amsterdam
- 28-5 The Grey Space in the Middle, Den Haag
- 03-6 Amor, Antwerpen
- 05-6 Luxor Live, Arnhem