Tara Velarde - Rise EP
Artist Information
- Label: self-released
- Genre: diva folk
- Hometown: Portland, OR
- Influences: Lianne La Havas, Regina Spektor, Adele
- Sounds like: Emily King, Brandi Carlile, Ingrid Michaelson
Biography
Call her a diva and call her a folkie. Tara Velarde embodies that elusive combination of swagger and sensitivity. She writes songs with a sharp sense of poetics and vulnerability, and then steps up to the mic to her deliver words and vocal melodies with powerhouse pipes. Tara’s world is diva-folk, and she owns it on her upcoming album, Rise, out in May.
Tara’s latest is an artistic watershed, and represents a powerful personal paradigm shift. “It’s not a concept album, but I call it ‘Rise’ because there are a lot of reoccurring themes of personal growth,” the Portland, Oregon-based artist says. “This is me accepting and embracing my own power.”
Tara’s special blend, diva-folk, is an expansive music, spanning soul, blues-rock, a dash of theatrics, and a healthy helping of swagger. Her melding of verve and vulnerability has garnered Tara favorable comparisons to Brandi Carlile, Regina Spektor, and Carole King—great female powerhouses with a lot to say. Live, Tara has toured nationally and internationally, both as an intimate solo performer and fronting a band of world-class musicians.
Tara’s Rise stands tall among her previous releases in that it’s a studio album in the grandest sense. Rather than duplicate her live show, the album is carefully layered with guitar textures, sprinkles of flute, tasteful percussion touches, and lush harmony vocal passages. On “Touch You” Tara explores forbidden love with slow-burn R&B. The sparse elegance of the tracks leaves room for Tara’s to explore almost the gospel-hues of her vocals.
The previously released single “Willow Baby” highlights the album’s rich production aesthetic, showcasing Tara’s artistry in an imaginatively produced setting. Her inner folkie comes through on the delicately reflective “The Mountain” and “For What What It Was” which showcase her heartfelt and insightful lyrics in delicately essentialized settings. The playful “Such An Island” sees Tara strut her diva self with some brawny blues-rock.
