Vagabon

Submitted by nonesuch on Wed, 05/22/2019 - 13:08
Sort Name
Vagabon
Artist Position
7.00
Biography (Excerpt)

Vagabon, aka Lætitia Tamko, will release her new album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, September 15. She reinvents herself once again with the most playful and adventurous music of her career. Co-produced by Tamko and Rostam (Vampire Weekend, Haim), the album features twelve vibrant tracks she wrote and produced primarily in Germany that channel dance music and effervescent pop through her own confident sensibilities. “This record feels like what I've been working towards,” Tamko says. “It's completely euphoric.” 

Weight
10
Active Artist
No
Facebook URL
https://www.facebook.com/vagabonjour
Twitter URL
https://twitter.com/vagabonvagabon
Instagram URL
https://www.instagram.com/vagabonvagabon/
Youtube URL
https://www.youtube.com/vagabonvagabon

Vagabon, aka Lætitia Tamko, will release her new album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, September 15 on Nonesuch Records. The album, co-produced by Tamko and Rostam (Vampire Weekend, Haim, Clairo), finds Tamko reinventing herself once again and features the most playful and adventurous music of her career, as evidenced by its lead track and opening song “Can I Talk My Shit?” and accompanying video, directed by Zac Dov Wiesel.

“I didn't feel like being introspective,” Tamko says of Sorry I Haven’t Called. “I just wanted to have fun.” Following her intimate 2017 debut Infinite Worlds, the New York artist favored expansive and evocative electronic textures in her breakthrough 2019 self-titled follow-up Nonesuch debut album. But her latest LP feels like a wholly new era for Tamko, one that’s transformational and uncompromising. Across twelve vibrant tracks she wrote and produced primarily in Germany, she channels dance music and effervescent pop through her own confident sensibilities. These conversational songs are alive and unselfconscious, a document of an artist fully embracing her vision and reclaiming her joy.

The first words she sings on the album are, “Can I talk my shit? / I got way too high for this.” It’s a statement of purpose for the rest of the album that this is an unapologetic artist. “This whole record is how I talk to my friends and how to talk to my lovers,” says Tamko. “I think honesty and conversational songwriting can become poetry. There’s beauty in plainly speaking without metaphors and without flowery imagery.”

The story of Sorry I Haven’t Called started in grief after her best friend died in 2021. This devastating and unexpected loss unmoored Tamko but also gave her a newfound clarity. “The things that I thought I cared about, I no longer cared about,” she says. “I had a realization that I need to make sure to feel everything that comes my way.” She decided to sell her things and move to a small lakeside village a few hours north of Hamburg in northern Germany to process everything. “There's no linear path to grief, and everyone handles it differently, but uprooting my life just felt like exactly what I had to do, ” says Tamko. “I needed a place to think and go through my discomfort privately but to also explore the newness and urgency I was feeling in my life.” In the village, her phone didn’t work and there were no close grocery stores or restaurants, so she spent her time alone working on music.

Despite the palpable absence in her life, her new songs were her most disarming and ebullient yet. The first one she wrote was “Carpenter,” a mesmerizing track anchored by a tangible bass groove, where she sings, “I wasn’t ready to move on out / but I'm more ready now.” It’s a fully-realized track and feels like the culmination of her catalog so far. “A lot of the music that I was making there had nothing to do with my grief at all,” says Tamko. “Once I gave myself permission to make a record that's full of life and energy, I realized that’s the point of this album. In the midst of going through all of these tough things, it became a record because of the vitality that these songs had.” For Tamko, there’s power in pursuing happiness.

While writing in Germany, Tamko nurtured her love for dance music and let it seep into her new songs. “The only things that were giving me access to a feeling were dance music and going to a rave in an extremely dark club where if I wanted to cry, I could do it and be around other people.” she says.

After a few months in Germany that included marathon writing sessions and a whirlwind romance, Tamko decided to stay with friends in Los Angeles and finish her record. She enlisted co-producer Rostam to help her unify her vision.

Sorry I Haven’t Called is a warm and resilient album about embracing the ecstatic moments wherever you can by knowing how you love and how you mourn. It’s an LP born of both communal dancefloor revelations and the clarifying peace from solitude, an emotional rebirth as well as an artistic one. “This record feels like what I've been working towards,” says Tamko. “When I think of this album, I think of playfulness. It's completely euphoric. It's because things were dark that this record is so full of life and energy. It’s a reaction to what I was experiencing at the time, not a document of it.”

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Latest Release

  • September 15, 2023

    On her album Sorry I Haven’t Called, Vagabon (aka Lætitia Tamko) reinvents herself once again with the most playful and adventurous music of her career. Co-produced by Tamko and Rostam (Vampire Weekend, Haim), the album features twelve vibrant tracks she wrote and produced primarily in Germany that channel dance music and effervescent pop through her own confident sensibilities. “This record feels like what I've been working towards,” Tamko says. “It's completely euphoric.”

News

  • September 15, 2023

    Vagabon, aka Lætitia Tamko, has released her new album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, out now. On the album, Tamko reinvents herself once again with the most playful and adventurous music of her career. Co-produced by Tamko and Rostam (Vampire Weekend, Haim), the album features twelve vibrant tracks she wrote and produced primarily in Germany that channel dance music and effervescent pop through her own confident sensibilities. “This record feels like what I've been working towards,” Tamko says. “It's completely euphoric.”

  • August 1, 2023

    Vagabon (aka Lætitia Tamko) will tour Europe as special guest of Arlo Parks in September, with shows in Dublin, Manchester, Amsterdam, Brussels, Berlin, Paris, and London. Tickets for all but the Dublin, Manchester, and Paris shows have already sold out. Vagabon returns to North America to lead a headline tour in October before heading back to Europe to tour with Weyes Blood, then back to the North America for the next leg of her headline tour in December. 

Tour

Thu, Sep 28
London,
Eventim Apollo
Thu, Sep 28
London,
Eventim Apollo
Fri, Oct 20
Chicago, IL
Lincoln Hall
Fri, Oct 20
Chicago, IL
Lincoln Hall
Sat, Oct 21
Detroit, MI
El Club
Sat, Oct 21
Detroit, MI
El Club
Sun, Oct 22
Toronto, ON
Velvet Underground
Sun, Oct 22
Toronto, ON
Velvet Underground
Tue, Oct 24
Brooklyn, NY
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Tue, Oct 24
Brooklyn, NY
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Thu, Oct 26
Somerville, MA
Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theatre
Thu, Oct 26
Somerville, MA
Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theatre
Fri, Oct 27
Philadelphia, PA
Underground Arts
Fri, Oct 27
Philadelphia, PA
Underground Arts
Sat, Oct 28
Hamden, CT
Space Ballroom
Sat, Oct 28
Hamden, CT
Space Ballroom
Sun, Oct 29
Washington, DC
The Atlantis
Sun, Oct 29
Washington, DC
The Atlantis
Tue, Oct 31
Barcelona,
Sala Apolo
Tue, Oct 31
Barcelona,
Sala Apolo

Photos

About Vagabon

  • Vagabon, aka Lætitia Tamko, will release her new album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, September 15 on Nonesuch Records. The album, co-produced by Tamko and Rostam (Vampire Weekend, Haim, Clairo), finds Tamko reinventing herself once again and features the most playful and adventurous music of her career, as evidenced by its lead track and opening song “Can I Talk My Shit?” and accompanying video, directed by Zac Dov Wiesel.

    “I didn't feel like being introspective,” Tamko says of Sorry I Haven’t Called. “I just wanted to have fun.” Following her intimate 2017 debut Infinite Worlds, the New York artist favored expansive and evocative electronic textures in her breakthrough 2019 self-titled follow-up Nonesuch debut album. But her latest LP feels like a wholly new era for Tamko, one that’s transformational and uncompromising. Across twelve vibrant tracks she wrote and produced primarily in Germany, she channels dance music and effervescent pop through her own confident sensibilities. These conversational songs are alive and unselfconscious, a document of an artist fully embracing her vision and reclaiming her joy.

    The first words she sings on the album are, “Can I talk my shit? / I got way too high for this.” It’s a statement of purpose for the rest of the album that this is an unapologetic artist. “This whole record is how I talk to my friends and how to talk to my lovers,” says Tamko. “I think honesty and conversational songwriting can become poetry. There’s beauty in plainly speaking without metaphors and without flowery imagery.”

    The story of Sorry I Haven’t Called started in grief after her best friend died in 2021. This devastating and unexpected loss unmoored Tamko but also gave her a newfound clarity. “The things that I thought I cared about, I no longer cared about,” she says. “I had a realization that I need to make sure to feel everything that comes my way.” She decided to sell her things and move to a small lakeside village a few hours north of Hamburg in northern Germany to process everything. “There's no linear path to grief, and everyone handles it differently, but uprooting my life just felt like exactly what I had to do, ” says Tamko. “I needed a place to think and go through my discomfort privately but to also explore the newness and urgency I was feeling in my life.” In the village, her phone didn’t work and there were no close grocery stores or restaurants, so she spent her time alone working on music.

    Despite the palpable absence in her life, her new songs were her most disarming and ebullient yet. The first one she wrote was “Carpenter,” a mesmerizing track anchored by a tangible bass groove, where she sings, “I wasn’t ready to move on out / but I'm more ready now.” It’s a fully-realized track and feels like the culmination of her catalog so far. “A lot of the music that I was making there had nothing to do with my grief at all,” says Tamko. “Once I gave myself permission to make a record that's full of life and energy, I realized that’s the point of this album. In the midst of going through all of these tough things, it became a record because of the vitality that these songs had.” For Tamko, there’s power in pursuing happiness.

    While writing in Germany, Tamko nurtured her love for dance music and let it seep into her new songs. “The only things that were giving me access to a feeling were dance music and going to a rave in an extremely dark club where if I wanted to cry, I could do it and be around other people.” she says.

    After a few months in Germany that included marathon writing sessions and a whirlwind romance, Tamko decided to stay with friends in Los Angeles and finish her record. She enlisted co-producer Rostam to help her unify her vision.

    Sorry I Haven’t Called is a warm and resilient album about embracing the ecstatic moments wherever you can by knowing how you love and how you mourn. It’s an LP born of both communal dancefloor revelations and the clarifying peace from solitude, an emotional rebirth as well as an artistic one. “This record feels like what I've been working towards,” says Tamko. “When I think of this album, I think of playfulness. It's completely euphoric. It's because things were dark that this record is so full of life and energy. It’s a reaction to what I was experiencing at the time, not a document of it.”

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