Having previously released two demos under her Sequoyah Tiger moniker, the Italian producer Leila Gharib returns with her debut EP on Germany’s Morr Music.
»Ta-Ta-Ta-Time« comprises five songs Leila Gharib wrote in her home town Verona between 2013 and 2015. Gharib, who had previously been a member of the local Indie Rock trio Bikini The Cat and co-founded the performing arts trio Barokthegreat, both takes her cues from various forms of arts and also makes use of them to create a multi-disciplinary gesamtkunstwerk.
If it is the zine she designed for the release of her first demo »Brother/Brother« in late 2014 or a slew of washed out, impressionistic videos she directed herself, she channels a passion for that which inspires her: Her so-called own ›visual alphabet‹ is made up from a wide array impressions like drawings of animals, VHS aesthetics, adventure books, amongst others. Gharib even describes the EP’s title as a ›graphic stutter‹ which expresses ›the duration of an emotional experience,‹ much like what she calls a ›Bolero effect‹ in regards to her music, which refers not to Ravel´s famous piece, but to a Spanish, traditional dance of the same name, which heavily relies on the interplay of the progression of time and rhythmic repetition.
It would thus perhaps not be wrong to label »Ta-Ta-Ta-Time« EP a piece of synth pop. Only that synth here would be short for synaesthetic: Gharib’s songs, which take their cues from traditional genres like Doo-Wop as much as from contemporary experimental Pop acts like Panda Bear, refer directly to visual art and language. Language is indeed the starting point of Sequoyah Tiger’s songs, which revolve around her processed and at times layered vocals, complemented by gripping rhythms and rich harmonies. Breakages, repetition and delays are not flaws, but rather integral elements in Gharib’s songwriting process, in which the musical quality of language develops a life of its own. Sequoyah Tiger’s opaque lyrics aim less at creating narratives than generating new meanings and expressing emotions which tie in perfectly with her highly allusive music.