COVER STORY | How Vagabon Built Her Fantasy

Laetitia Tamko doesn’t want to talk about the sad stuff, she just wants to talk her shit. That’s how her latest record, Sorry I Haven’t Called, begins. “I’m way too high for this, riding on a wave too low,” she sings. “Never found myself through the smoke, but I can’t resist. I’m ready to leave with you, I’ve been getting way too bold.” It’s obvious that Tamko’s orbit—which she encircles under the moniker Vagabon—is now built with a newfound agency, where she can open up and be vulnerable with the audience she’s long cultivated.

While some artists are keen on sketching out the bones of a record, Tamko makes songs until she’s making an album—it’s rarely ever an exercise or endeavor that includes any conscious decision to see an entire project’s scope before any of it is written. “I’m just gathering ideas, trying to figure out what it is that I’m gonna say,” she explains. “In a conversation I was having with one of my friends, she was like, ‘It sounds like you keep talking about wanting to speak freely.’” Upon that back and forth, Tamko pulled out the attitude that would follow her across Sorry I Haven’t Called. It was an act of confidence, of finesse, of boldness; when she finished the sublime dance track “Can I Talk My Shit?,” it became immediately apparent that it was destined to be the first song on the album. It was her chance to let everyone know what they would be walking into for the next 30 minutes.

“I’ve always been really reserved in what I’ve decided to share, I’m a pretty private kind of person,” Tamko says. “My previous work has always reflected that, to me. I don’t know if it’s apparent to others but, to me, it’s always been like, ‘Oh, how can I talk about this in a way that doesn’t make me feel too exposed or too subjected to criticism or, even, feedback?’ How can I just be like, ‘I’m really just talking about me. It’s just me, it’s just me—don’t say anything’? The world expanded a bit, where it was like, ‘I don’t really care to be so beholden to those things.”

The Cameroon-born, New York-based singer/songwriter has made primitive alt-rock and electronica for as long as I’ve been cognizant of what exists and thrives just beyond the genres’ forefronts. During the pandemic, I don’t know if there was a record that meant more to me than Vagabon, Tamko’s self-titled sophomore effort that saw her turn away from romanticizing the ways in which she’d been hurt, brutalized. She was once an underground artist clawing at the surface, attempting to—as a Black woman making guitar-oriented music—break into an indie rock scene that had (and still has) a serious visibility problem for Black folks, especially Black femme and non-binary artists. When Tamko did a 180-degree turn from her debut album Infinite Worlds and re-defined what intimacy meant in the context of her sound and grandeur, it became apparent that her bold, bright and limitless approach to songwriting would endure—and it made the rest of us eager to know where she would turn next, whenever that time was meant to come.

But I remember when, six years ago, I saw Tamko play a set in Columbus, Ohio on one of the hottest summer nights I can remember. She was the opening act at a gig at Park Street Saloon—a local venue lost to redevelopment only a few months after the show concluded—and it was just her and her guitar, with NNAMDÏ on the drum kit. The two musicians played many of the tracks from her debut, a reflective, sparse and minimalist rock record as emotionally dense as it is sonically bare-bones. Whenever Tamko talks about access around music, she always references Infinite Worlds.

“That album is really a product of my environment, being in the underground scene in New York and we couldn’t hear ourselves, the monitors never worked—so we played louder and we screamed into the microphone,” she says. “All of our friends, we were all self-taught, figuring out how to play those instruments. [Infinite Worlds] has this inherent kind of learning quality to it. I do think, even for me, it’s a bit jarring—it’s crazy to think that that wasn’t as long as the work seems like it should have been. It was just two albums ago. But it was like when you’re trying out different clothes—like, ‘Oh, my God, am I goth? Am I steampunk? Where do I feel good?’ All of those elements are still a part of me.”

Tamko is right. A guitar-focused, brutally vulnerable song like “Anti-Fuck” would have landed nicely on the Infinite Worlds tracklist, while the four on the floor-style of something like “You Know How” would have paired nicely on a record with the fluid, disco ethos of “Water Me Down.” For Tamko—and the world of Vagabon as an artistic vessel, as a means to a curious end—the work of the last half-decade has been a gradual, but exponential, forward-motion towards how she can push herself and make the most progress, creatively and emotionally, before even sharing it with everyone else.

While Sorry I Haven’t Called is, at its core, a dance record, Tamko’s relationship with her guitar hasn’t wavered. Her parents bought her her first six-string from Costco and, while many folks are first drawn to the piano and that becomes their entry point into the kaleidoscopic wonders of music-making, Tamko found comfort and affection in folk music—but she’s quick to insist that she was strictly into the not-cool version of it, because her only access to the contemporary sonic world was through radio. Rather than discovering Elliott Smith or Nick Drake, she was taking notes from Coldplay and Taylor Swift. Her brother was into System of a Down, which propelled her into an affinity for Slipknot. All of this is just to say, for Tamko and for the origins of Vagabon, there was not a piano in sight—which makes her turn towards (and full embrace of) synthesizers all the more flooring.

The way Tamko uses guitar now is more so on a sample basis. The first dozen seconds of “Do Your Worst” platform a voice memo of the song’s demo—of her playing acoustic guitar—put through a tape machine and modulated. The instrument has evolved from just being a songwriting tool for Tamko; now, it’s a fixture of her overall sound design, a building block to an even more visceral world, glazed with affect and stretched into a new shape. To unspool Tamko’s music is a bountiful reward. Especially on Sorry I Haven’t Called, the work is dazzling and stirring.

Sorry I Haven’t Called was informed, largely, by the passing of her friend Eric Littmann, a Chicago multi-instrumentalist who was a longtime collaborator of Julie Byrne and the orchestrator of the Phantom Posse collective. It got me thinking about how musicians and writers and painters and thinkers are expected to create through the aftermath of loss. When I lost all of my grandparents within a year of each other, I found myself really unable to make art in any meaningful way for a long time. There’s this assumption that all grief immediately manifests itself into artistic output, but there’s not nearly enough conversations around how upended a life can get and how making art can’t always repair that change and that vacancy. While some artists do elect to work through grief via music or poetry, some don’t—and Sorry I Haven’t Called finds Tamko focusing on joy, allowing for energy to open the door for a mourning process that wasn’t imbued with a cut-and-dry portrayal or articulation of loss. Though, that wasn’t always how she saw her third record turning out.

“I thought that I would make these songs that people would listen to only when they have this particular experience,” Tamko explains. “The first year of my grief, I listened to a lot of songs about grief. I revisited that Bon Iver record, For Emma, Forever Ago; I listened to that Mount Eerie record [A Crow Looked at Me] that is so clearly about grief. But I didn’t end up doing that. It turns out that, when I sat down to write in my studio, that reserved energy—that fear of really opening up—had broken away and I felt more playful. In my actual life when I was not in the studio—when I was not working, when I was not writing—things felt unbearable. But then, when I was [in the studio], I had some playfulness that I wanted to get out. And it was conflicting for a while, I gotta say. I mean, it took a few months for me to come to terms with that fact that [Sorry I Haven’t Called] is more of an abstract reaction to how deeply I was grieving—because I didn’t write about my grief at all, actually.”

Littmann and Tamko made “Water Me Down” together, and he bought her Logic for the first time. His passing wasn’t just a significant loss for her emotionally, but also musically. They’d made so much music together—some credited, some not—that the work just was. It was communal and organic and symbiotic in that way, and Tamko felt debilitated by the thought of making music again without him—on top of the fact she’d already gone a few years without working on much after Vagabon came out. She cites selling her stuff and moving to the German countryside as the only reason she was able to make Sorry I Haven’t Called. “I had to go to a place so remote and do something so drastic, where all I had was time to think and all I had was quiet,” she explains. “I was almost bored, and then I found myself returning to the things that would help me in different parts of my life, which is making stuff.”

Having lived in Cameroon until her family moved to New York when she was a teenager, Tamko is used to migrating to unfamiliar places and not having a visible, commodifiable identity. Smallness, in the wake of grief, can be beneficial; it’s easier to let go of sorrow if you’re the only one around to name it. The idea of going to a place like Berlin, which is largely English-speaking, wasn’t what Tamko was interested in. She wanted solace and a place where she could turn off the turbulence around her. After “I’m sorry for your loss” texts came rushing in after Littmann’s death, Tamko dreamt of getting the fuck out of dodge. “You don’t really know what to do with those acts of kindness in the moment,” she notes. Tamko thought about this dreamy home in rural Germany that some musician pals in Hamburg (who opened for her on tour a few years ago).

“I think a lot of people yearn to start over, even people who think that they’re settled in their routine. I think there’s this excitement that coems with breaking down everything that you know,” she adds. “Moving to New York, which is one of the greatest cities in the world, you’re like, ‘I don’t speak English yet, I don’t know what’s going on.’ But everything is new, and I got really addicted to that feeling as a kid—I got really addicted to what it felt like to look around and to feel really, really small. I still kind of do that in my life now, to get inspired—not even, necessarily for music. Once you stop dreaming, that’s kind of it. Shaking things up like that, for me, keeps me grounded.”

Tamko is a vagabon[d] after all, and Sorry I Haven’t Called is, in turn, a shake-up—a hedonistic, generous excavation of pleasure. It’s a left-turn from Vagabon and a different sonic cosmos than Infinite Worlds completely—as the stripped-back, singer/songwriter tendencies are still there but delicately placed beneath vivid, digital pastorals of auto-tune and drum machines. It’s refreshing to watch your favorite artist take leaps and develop an arsenal of different sonic fonts—and the riches that come with taking those risks is not lost on Tamko. “One of the great rewards is cultivating an audience that knows you,” she says. “It’s almost like guiding the flock a little bit. I think those who stick around from Infinite Worlds, who are like, ‘I enjoyed that record, but I like this one more’—or they’re like, ‘I didn’t think I would like this, but I like this’—that’s the reward for me.” She’s interested in doing work that’s similarly moving like that of Michael Jackson or Bjӧrk, artists who subvert expectations and nourish smart audiences who are down to have their preconceptions shaken up and allow themselves to be surprised. It’s what helps the community that surrounds Vagabon remain sustainable, worthwhile, kind and growing.

When Tamko unveiled the song “Carpenter” earlier this spring, it was clear that she was going in a brand new direction. What is brilliant about that song, however, is just how accessible it is. The beat isn’t too flashy, the melody is digestible and absorbent; the sensuality that comes from her own bluntness, when she sings “I wasn’t ready to hear you out, but I’m more ready now.” The song was the first instance of Tamko using influences of African dance music—especially African House and jungle—in her own work. She doesn’t just cite club and rave culture as inspiration; she boils it down on an atomic level, mentioning how polyrhythms are stored in her body, in her very fabric of existence. It took her a long time to write this record, because she was actively discovering the dichotomy of making dance music that you can tune out the words to and just invest attention into the rhythms or, if you’re inclined to, you can find meaningful lines beyond the noise.

Four years ago, after Vagabon came out, Tamko felt restricted and expected to just outmaneuver all outside forces and hold things together. Much of that fell by the wayside when she acquired a newfound confidence just by simply continuing to stay alive. “You hear about it, but you’re not really sure if it’ll happen to you,” she says, laughing. “But it does, and there is so much angst that came from those years of my life, even before Eric died. I hate to say the dreaded word, but the pandemic shook us up. I felt so restrained in those early records. Just through living a longer life, I found acceptance with myself and I felt a little less embarrassed by the ways in which I was different. [Sorry I Haven’t Called] was about showing more of what I would show in an intimate relationship, the version of me that the people who know me get to see. It wasn’t that I was disingenuous, it was more of a self-protection thing—putting together a very reserved and composed verion of myself. And, in that state, all I could express was anguish. I didn’t really feel free in my old work.”

For Tamko, there’s a difference between reacting to a period in your life versus documenting it, and she was doing much more of the latter on Infinite Worlds and Vagabon. Sorry I Haven’t Called is a reactionary record, in a way where she is not just taking a snapshot of a lifetime—she’s delivering a thesis on it, too. “How I write, documenting it does feel like the ‘I’ statements, whereas the reaction is like, ‘I’ll go where it serves me.’ It’s like looking for some aerial perspective rather than writing from within the tornado. It’s zooming out and being like, ‘Okay, I’m watching it. What’s going on all around it and how do I feel?’” she adds.

Tamko returned from Germany in mid-2022 with a hard-drive of bits and pieces and collaborations she’d collected across the world, she would soon link up with Rostam Batmanglij—whose work with Clairo, Georgia, HAIM and, of course, Vampire Weekend has kept him as one of the most important producers of his generation. He wrote to Tamko and asked her to come to his studio and play for him, a request she made good on. “I had heard of him and I knew that he was well respected,” she says. “But, I was really excited to meet him and talk and see how he views music, how I view music—especially because I had held these songs for quite some time and this record is the first record he’s worked on in this capacity. He doesn’t usually like to work on records that have already reached this level of completion.” But Rostam saw something in what Tamko had made and, together, they made a cohesive body of work: He pushed her to write and sing in French for the first time in six years; she was pulling a lot of inspiration from DJ mixes and instrumental music; Rostam’s approach to analog elements helped transform Tamko’s electronica into something that will still be listenable and rewarding enough to revisit 50 years from now.

One of the most important and striking pieces of Sorry I Haven’t Called, however, is just how distinctive and dynamic Tamko’s voice has become. She mentions that she’s never had vocal training, though she did take a couple of voice lessons. It was in those few classes that she was not taught how to sing, but how to find comfort in your voice and let those talents come out—rather than listening to the work of other performers and trying to imitate their inflections and bravado. Despite Tamko having one of the most distinctive voices of her generation, she still struggles with calling herself a singer—even as she continues to discover her own styles across every album.

“I go to karaoke with Mitski and she’s singing Mariah Carey perfectly,” she says. “With these songs, I studied pop singing and I found a lot of confidence in my voice. Even working with people like Rostam, he’d be like ‘Your voice is crazy, just go for it.’ I used to make records alone, I didn’t really have that someone, or people, pushing me or urging me to keep going or sing louder. I didn’t come up against any of those challenges. As I was more affirmed through this work, as I was more assured in the singing and the melodies, I realized that I had one of those voices where, no matter what I was singing, you could probably tell that it’s me. And that gave me a lot of confidence to project it more.”

I think back on that Columbus show six years ago, how Tamko hit the stage dressed in an all-black, minimalistic aesthetic. Everything from her shaved head to her clothes to her guitar to the darkness of the show room felt like a finely tuned theatric of dolor that mimicked the songs she was singing. Now, her artistry has taken on a mode of costumery, it’s lavish and eccentric. If you’ve been tuned into her Instagram grid, you’ve likely caught a glimpse into her wide array of glitzy outfits and statement wigs. The vivid, exuberant color compliments the grandiosity of Sorry I Haven’t Called beyond the confines of just being an album. No, this extension of beauty transforms the project into something that can’t be confined to just a turntable or a streaming service. It’s living, breathing, mesmerizing art—and it came as an urgent place of safety for Tamko, who was returning from a place of loss.

“I’ve had to create a bit more theater for myself to come back to this, I’ll be honest,” she says. “I’m coming back, after this break, a lot more fragile, a lot more sensitive, a lot more soft—because the hardness comes from doing it in repetition. So, part of the visual world that I built for this, it allows me to deliver on this fantasy I wanted to make with this album—something that’s distinct. There’s something about the theater of really allowing the viewer or the listener or the fan to completely submit to the fantasy by not breaking character that’s been really fun—because then, when I take if off, I take if off. I’m like Hannah Montana, or something.”

In such a short time, Tamko has promised a life of zigging when the world expects her to zag—and she’s accomplished such a feat across only three albums. Just when you thought Sorry I Haven’t Called might end up a pronounced purging of agony, it becomes a euphoric token of growth, romance and reflection. On “Passing Me By,” Tamko laments a distance between herself and someone she adores: “We found ourselves taking different paths, I see you out and I miss your laugh”; on “Lexicon,” she proclaims that the language she holds with a lover washes away when they are dancing together; “Autobahn” is an uncomplicated admission of wanting to do better, especially when Tamko sings “Crazy patterns, they should matter. I’m gonna try my best, what we have will be ours”; “Made Out With Your Best Friend” is a boastful, erotic, pseudo-rap delight that displays Tamko’s unbreakable poise.

Gone now is the ferocity of Infinite Worlds. Tamko has instead chosen delicacy—though it’s turned up to an 11 on Sorry I Haven’t Called. The hurt on this record, it’s spread out and quiet. Losing a loved one is not a narrow kind of pain; it unravels across an entire lifetime. Tamko has returned to New York and is stitching herself back up, repairing old conversations and considering how she might continue living beyond the chaos of unavoidable grief. These are small, necessary steps that make the colors burn a shade brighter and the intimacy strike an octave kinder. It’s been a long four years; Laetitia Tamko has more than earned the space to finally talk her shit.

Matt Mitchell reports as Paste‘s music editor from their home in Columbus, Ohio.