The New Zealand-born, Los Angeles-based artist [Tamaryn](https://www.instagram.com/tamarynmusic/?hl=en), born Tamaryn Brown, has been releasing music for the past decade, infusing gothic dreampop with post-punk that shines a light on the power and range of her voice. Today, she returns with the release of _Dreaming the Dark_, her first album since the 2015 LP _Cranekiss_.
Written and produced alongside Jorge Elbrecht, known for his collaborations with Ariel Pink, _Dreaming in Dark_ signifies an emotional evolution by Tamaryn, revealing intense vocals and an expansion of her sonic palette. We caught up with Tamaryn to discuss the darkness, creative blocks, and her newfound desire to tour.
**What was the main inspiration behind Dreaming in the Dark?**
Initially I had a concept that I wanted to make another record, sort of an evolution in where I left off with my last album Cranekiss and wasn't quite sure for a couple years what that was going to be. So I wasn't really working on stuff that much, still taking everything in, living my life, kind of trying to find something to inspire me to want to even put out another record again. I’d been living in LA and I had been really inspired by listening to alot of hip hop and radio stuff here. So the initial concept was sort of to have a certain kind of production change, to have beats influence it.
**There's this compelling darkness (hence the name) with this record and each song reveals so many different emotions. What was the writing process like?**
I usually approach writing lyrics almost like a divination process. Jorge Elbrecht and I will write a melody, and there will already be kind of a mumble track on the demo and and I'll go back and listen to it and in a more like tapping or channeling something you hear. Almost like a crazy person. You hear hidden messages or things you mumbled. Just the way a melody kind of forces itself to you, you make your mouth make certain vowel sounds or whatever. Then I'll think I hear a theme or one phrase that stuck out and I'll build it off that. Looking for the messages from a deeper inner place you know? I think the difficult thing in truth lyrically for a song is that a song or art in general is kind making a concrete example of a very ephemeral or transitie moment or feeling. So when you write a song you're not making a manifesto on your entire life or even one situation, you're not really defining it as a whole. You're kind of defining these moments.
Even in the title, _Dreaming of Dark_, you see these traumas or emotional experiences in your life through kind of a potentially darkened lense of traumas and experiences you've had previously. So there's a lot of drama and emotions in these songs, but I'm also aware to know it’s not just me painting myself as a victim by any means. I do think it’s more intense than before.
**Do you set out to create a specific atmosphere when you begin recording?**
Yes, I think when I start to make a record, as a big music fan, in such a old school way I think of making records as full albums and so I'll have an idea that I'll want a certain amount of singles, certain amount of dancing songs, certain amount of darker ballads, I call them sexy cruisers, but I'll always have an idea of what a balanced album would be. But then maybe there's some factors of what's going on in your life at the time, who your collaborators are, what comes out that day in the studio. It evolves. But I always go into an album with a pretty strong sense of range of songs I’m looking for. Not lyrically though. That's the most magic part of what I do. The whole process is divination or magic.
**What if any creative blocks do you experience?**
I think my biggest creative blocks over the years have been insecurities. Experiences of being myself and being in music for as long as I have, the kinds of relationships that I've drawn through bring in that community — you know, toxic relationships, the poisonous things people can put in your head and the poisonous things you can put in your head. The blocks really come from those kind of things to be totally honest. But at the same time, I think that the fact that I'm such a sensitive and vulnerable person is what has allowed me to make music so emotional. So it's a battle all the time, staying open, appreciating my own sensitivity with also realizing that it could be my own worst enemy.
**What are some artists that have inspired you, particularly for this album?**
To answer this question is always so hard because I'm such a fan of so many things. Things that were brought up the most during this record were definitely Tears for Fears, Nine Inch Nails, I also remember using Cyndi Lauper as inspiration for a song, using Book of Love as inspiration, Depeche Mode, Kanye West, and then obviously I've been very inspired by a lot of female vocalists. Kate Bush will always be a big part of where I draw from but equally I am inspired by singers like Jim Kerr of Simple Minds. My goal is to kind of take a little but from everything I love and make some kind of Frankenstein situation. Just to try and capture anything that really moves me on a soul level and have it somehow fit together. That's the biggest challenge of the records that I've been making, especially the past two. There's just so many things happening at once.
**You're about to go on tour for _Dreaming the Dark_. What's your experience with touring?**
When I began the project I didn't want to tour at all. My collaborator at the time didn't want to and was kind of disillusioned by that and didn't want to tour unless their was a real audience for it. When we started the recording, we got signed to a label and they wanted us to tour and it's just a very slow, a many years process of me even wanting to be on the road and I think that even with the last album I didn't tour that much. It's a total learning experience for me figuring out how I want to present this live. The vocals are really ambitious compared to things I've done in the past, so pulling that off live with the volume of your amps at the level that the audience expects is a real challenge, but I’m up for it. I feel like it will be nice to tour my home as most fully actualized version of myself because as that happens, the more you tour, the better you get.
**Tamaryn Southern California Show Dates**
1/15 - San Diego, CA - Casbah - [TICKETS](https://www.ticketfly.com/event/1802313-tamaryn-cold-showers-dj-jon-san-diego/)
1/19 - Petaluma, CA - The Phoenix Theater - [TICKETS](https://www.ticketfly.com/purchase/event/1794961/?afftrack=e36152429)
2/23 - Mexico City - Frontón México - [TICKETS](https://fronticket.boletosenlinea.events/ordertickets.asp?p=456&backurl=default.asp)
4/26 - Los Angeles, CA - The Echoplex - [TICKETS](http://www.spacelandpresents.com/events/echoplex/)
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Photographed by [Gina Canavan](https://www.instagram.com/ginacanavan/?hl=en)
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