I first heard t l k as a guest vocalist on Kloyd’s song “Eye of it All“. You can’t hear that voice and not want to hear more of that voice. Sometimes when that happens it turns out that the guest vocalist’s own music isn’t quite what I’d hoped: that’s not the case here. t l k is way more than a voice: they’re a multitalented, cross-genre artist who makes adventurous, surprising and haunting music. It’s hard to classify and impossible to ignore.
t l k’s latest album (ish), from October 2024, is called Strength in Tenderness 2.0, which includes the five songs from their 2022 record Strength in Tenderness, plus a remix of each of them. “IWNU” (above) has a strong alt-r&b feel at first, but a saxophone, glitchy samples and vocal effects push it in directions that I have little frame of reference for. Ambient? Alt-Jazz? Trip-hop? Sure. All of the above.
“Most Alive” is the closest of the five original tracks to a single. It maintains the tumbling piano and layers of vocal samples, and includes off-balance percussion loops for an immersive, dark and airy trip hop experience. The six minute length gives ample space for multiple shifts in mood. There’s even something that slightly resembles a chorus here:
Remixes might not be the best descriptor for the alternate versions of the five songs on this record. While they tend to be more beat-driven than the source material, they’re equally weird and challenging. In the case of “Frame of Ted (BIPED Version)”, the alternate mix inverts the original into dense and opaque and almost unrecognizable:
t l k’s other releases are a little more conventional. Single “Serenia” from 2023 is what it sounds like, a synth-driven soothing and layered downtempo piece. The three songs on Primed for Loss from the same year feature soprano and falsetto voice over mostly piano and strings, sometimes jazzy, sometimes textural.
Most recently (and I’m including this late becuase I found it after I was almost done this post), t l k has contributed a song called “Legs” to a compilation from arts org Future Bubblers (what a name). It’s one of their most accessible tracks to date:
Taken as a narrative, it’s possible to see t l k moving more toward electronic music – the collaboration with Kloyd seems to have been a bit of an inflection point where they have embraced more electronic elements and collaborators. They’re teasing an album in 2025, so I guess we’ll see if I’m right.
