- The Scottish breakthrough's debut album is a kaleidoscope of pop, club and indie that balances heartbreak with stargazing.
- If you had to choose a clubland protagonist as the breakout act post-pandemic, the Scottish producer TAAHLIAH is a pretty safe bet. In 2021, she released her debut single, "Brave." The song appeared to fit right into the hyperpop zeitgeist with its neon melodies, clubby kick drums and emotional vulnerability served up with vibrant, synthetic vocals. Since then, TAAHLIAH has checked just about every career-defining box you can imagine. Glastonbury? Check. Viral Boiler Room set? Check. Fawning press coverage? Big time. Add back-to-back Scottish Alternative Music Award wins and TAAHLIAH has not only taken every dance floor by storm, but she has also transcended the underground to reach mainstream success.
What has also defined TAAHLIAH's rise is the way she's progressed her career on her own terms. Since "Brave"'s widespread acclaim, TAAHLIAH has been unfairly lumped into the hyperpop resurgence. As she sees it, the genre label pigeonholed her—both in terms of her identity and aesthetically. In an interview with Mixmag, she explained how hyperpop had "racial connotations" that continually drew her into comparison with white artists. And even when her music has engaged with the genre, it's an effort to reclaim it. In a now-deleted tweet, she pointed out that the basis of what we think of as hyperpop—adrenalised synthesisers layered over pounding club rhythms with sugary vocals—is in fact an appropriation of working-class genres like happy hardcore.
Safe to say, TAAHLIAH's follow-up debut LP Gramarye, is not a hyperpop album. Or, at least, it's not a hyperpop album in the way that the marketing team at Deutsche Bank or WeWork Spotify curators think of the genre. With a few exceptions—the pumping kicks on "Eylvue" or the trance chords on "Dawn"—Gramarye presents a TAAHLIAH that is softer and more grown-up. On "Cherish," when we hear collaborator naafi sing, clear and stripped of AutoTune over smoky guitar, "I'm lighter now that we don't speak," it's clear that TAALIAH can execute an indie pop ballad with as much panache as her usual queer club anthems. Each track on Gramarye embraces this maximalist tapestry of beauty and vulnerability.
The single tear moving down TAAHLIAH's face on the cover of Gramarye gives you a pretty good idea of the emotional palette before you even hit play. From the palpable heartbreak on the poppy "2018" to the melodramatic trance synth work of "Heavenrise," TAAHLIAH isn't afraid to go deep into her feels on the record. The songs lean heavily on poignant string arrangements, the vocals of her longtime collaborator, naafi, and an impressive assortment of musicians on live instrumentation. Devonté Hynes's bass guitar grooves tether TAAHLIAH to earth, and London Contemporary Orchestra adds distant flutes and strings to make each line feel that much grander. In the resulting emotional vortex, the synthetic and the organic create moments of unfiltered beauty. The core of the record climaxes with "Angel," where she commits to tenderness in a cold, lonely world. Helping her out, naafi sings: "The world is hard, but I'm soft like an angel." Bright harp strings and snapping percussion guide the song along before it ends with a muted guitar solo.
With all of this heaviness, the record's dance tracks are a necessary pressure release. TAAHLIAH has been teasing "Boys" since her Manchester Boiler Room set, and its three-minute run time shows her in vintage form: earworm vocal hook, elastic kick drums and candy-coated synths. The other straight-up banger, "Eylvue," could have been lifted off her club-friendly debut EP, Angelica. It's the record's penultimate track, "Dawn," however, that shows TAAHLIAH marrying her songwriting with her club prowess. Slowly and subtly, TAAHLIAH transforms a forlorn meditation on short attention spans into a trance epic that reaches the emotional high of Tiësto during his In Search of Sunrise years.
TAAHLIAH also pushes back on any hyperpop association by mining the guitars and live drums of Glasgow indie. While there are little hints of 2024's favourite genre, shoegaze (wait for the guitar feedback on the embittered "2018"), TAAHLIAH flirts with less cool versions wafting through the FM dials. On "Holding On / Let Me Go," she goes country with Pete Tsatsamis's vocals reaching for the horizon over a lonesome guitar riff and chunky, live-sounding drums. Add in the little flecks of Auto-Tune and the song lands somewhere between PC Music and the country-pop of a band like Plains. The heart-rendering "Hours," on the other hand, is like a queer version of Olivia Rodrigo's "Driver's License" (one of the more memorable lyrics includes, "It's comforting when I pass by your house / But I don't ever want to step inside.") Vocalists naafi and Tsatsanis trade verses over 80s glam metal chords and acrylic synth bleeps. But lest the song get too corny, naafi's falsetto reminds her spurned lover with direct poignancy, "Now you're just someone who used to be inside me."
At face value, this mixing of clunky rock chords and polished synthesiser could have fallen flat, but there is a sincerity in TAAHLIAH's unabashed love of pulling from disparate corners of music. As she explained in her Breaking Through feature for this publication: "I'll always prioritise authenticity over notoriety." And Gramayre is nothing if not authentic. You can tell TAAHLIAH genuinely loves each of the genres that she plays with, from country twang to the hardcore continuum—and it's an album that will stick with us whatever the weather.
Tracklist01. Lachrymose
02. Boys
03. 2018
04. Hours
05. Eylvue
06. Heavenrise
07. Cherish
08. Angel
09. Whispers
10. Dawn
11. Holding On / Let Me Go