Words by Brendan Sullivan

I’m not sure how Tamaryn‘s debut album, The Waves, slipped under my radar. It was released in September 2010 on Mexican Summer (a great label) after a handful of 7″ singles and EPs, but I only just came across it in the last couple of months. Thank god I went back and scoured over some 2010 yearend lists looking for hidden gems; this is definitely one of them. Luscious, shoegaze guitars, washes of reverb, sultry female vocals: a real mood-setter if I’ve ever heard one. I’ve fallen asleep to it pretty much every day for the last couple of weeks. That’s not to say it’s boring (far from it), it’s just the kind of music you lose yourself in. So come on, jump in and have a swim. The water’s fine.

Tamaryn / Sandstone
Tamaryn / The Waves

The name Tamaryn comes from the vocalist, named . . . well, Tamaryn. She was born in New Zealand but lived most recently in New York before relocating to San Francisco to work more closely with collaborator Rex John Shelverton, who does all of the instrumentation and production on The Waves. The two spent 16 months meticulously recording this album on their own in their practice space in San Fran, but it has a decidedly hi-fi sound and feel to it; the reverb doesn’t disguise any lack of musicianship or songwriting but merely adds to the dreamy atmospherics, and Tamaryn’s vocals remain one of the main components of the songs. Part of what’s so compelling to me is that this mixture of basic sonic elements (a bass line to open, an echoey guitar riff, a simple drum machine beat, etc.) can build into such intricate structures, exploding with guitars and vocals and out-and-out emotion that you just can’t accomplish when you’re not paying attention to what you’re doing. Kudos to the duo for having the patience to devote themselves to a specific sound and really work at achieving it, across the album. I want to call it shoegaze, I want to call it dream pop, I want to call it gothic psychedelia . . . I want to call it a lot of things, but in the end, all I can say is, “It’s gorgeous”. It was interesting to read in an interview, too, about how Tamaryn’s time as an assistant to a psychiatrist and her mother’s work at a shelter for street gang members motivated some of the lyrical content of the album. Having just learned that while writing this piece, I need to go back and relisten with a more critical ear; up until now, I’ve mostly noted the oft-repeated oceanic imagery with references to waves and shores and surfaces and reflections and so on and so forth. But all of this adds up to an incredibly interesting, listenable and beautiful album that just demands your attention. In a way, I can liken listening to this album to staring into a deep pond: you can stare back at your reflection or you can peer into the murky depths, and the best part is that you can go back and forth between the two, sometimes without even realizing. Not many albums can do that.

Check out some official videos for “Love Fade” and “Dawning” below, and peruse some links for further info about the band and their current tour with The Raveonettes.

Tamaryn on the web:
Twitter
Facebook
Insound
Artist page on Mexican Summer Records

Filed under: New to Us, New to You?, Not Blake, Jim, or Brendan