Tonje Thilesen
The FADER’s “Songs You Need” are the tracks we can’t stop playing. Check back every day for new music and follow along on our Spotify playlist.
Vagabon, the name under which Lætitia Tamko carves her delicately heart-rending songs, is looking backwards as she makes progress on new song "Carpenter." The track, co-produced by Tamko alongside Rostam Batmanglij, is built on bubbling basslines and a pace that settles just short of a sprint.There is a warmth and an openness to the music that creates space for Tamko to reflect on her past as she moves through an important development in real time.
"I wasn’t ready to hear you out, I wasn’t ready to shut it down," she sings of a previous relationship. "I wasn’t ready to talk it out. I wasn’t ready to let down." The implication, which adds weight to Tamko's soft delivery, being that she has finally reached that point and now it's too late.
There's some sadness in that realization, it's always frustrating to gain knowledge you know would have helped you at a previous junction, but morover there is acceptance. "I’m more ready now. Yeah i’m all ready now," she sings as that bass riff kicks back in, propelling everything forwards. That forward moments seemingly reflecting that we all have limits and yet the best way past them is to keep pushing until the blockages become a distant memory.
