Vagabon (Laetitia Tamko) performs at the Rickshaw Stop.
Laetitia Tamko’s debut album has no listening requirements. Released under Tamko’s stage name Vagabon, “Infinite Worlds” is a tender, minimalist journey into indie rock and loneliness, an exploration of the expansive, evolving nature of personal identity.
“I’ve kind of, like, bared my soul and been as open as I have ever been in this album,” Tamko says. “This album is for the people who need it, who can find solace in it, who can find community in it, and who can find a sense of ‘finding someone who gets it’ in the music.”
“Infinite Worlds” is the focus of the New York artist’s ongoing North American tour, which will bring her to San Francisco’s Rickshaw Stop on Thursday, March 23, with Joyride in support of Allison Crutchfield & the Fizz.
It will be an especially meaningful performance for Tamko. Her last visit to the Bay Area was on Dec. 2, the night of the Ghost Ship fire. It was her first performance ever in San Francisco. After the show, a few friends went to the Oakland warehouse for a party that evening, and the night took a tragic turn.
“I lost a lot of dear friends that night,” she says. “I have a special place in my heart for the Bay Area, and I hope that this show can shed a new and positive light on my experience there.”
This upcoming show will be a healing act for Tamko. She values these moments, as they’re the backbone of her creative process. When she writes a song, she digs deep into her own story — the story of a young black woman, of a Millennial artist who loves poetry, classics and pop music in tandem — to retain and develop her voice. It’s a subtle, powerful display of artistic maturity and confidence.
Perhaps the fact that this 24-year-old indie rocker has such an innate understanding of human complexity and contradiction is what makes Tamko’s small but promising catalog of music so emotionally resonant.
Tamko’s been working and recording as Vagabon only since 2014, and “Infinite Worlds” is the product of a few exhilarating, exhausting years of making the midnight rounds in small New York City venues. The album is only eight tracks long, but each is tightly and carefully written, performed and produced; any loose ends, lyrically or otherwise, are deliberate. In its messy precision, Tamko’s music captures the mutability of memory, the uncertainty of living emotion, from the perspective of someone who isn’t typically represented in the predominantly white, male indie rock genre.
Explaining her songwriting process, Tamko said that she “wanted to keep the listener on their toes a little bit about what they think is coming next.”
Take, for instance, “The Embers,” the opening track on “Infinite Worlds.” The chorus hook goes: “Run and tell everybody that Laetitia is / A small fish / I’m just a small fish.” It’s a curious metaphor, until she follows up with, “And you’re a shark that hates everything / You’re a shark that eats every fish.” Suddenly the guitar rages and swells; Tamko’s soft, sweet singing becomes a raw, hoarse chant, and it contains multitudes.
And there’s something new to discover in every turn — the punk edge of “The Embers” is followed by the stripped-down acoustics of “Fear & Force,” which is later followed by ambient, textured synth in “Mal à L’aise” — each song with its own emotional narrative to unpack.
“Infinite Worlds” is a complex, multifaceted project because the person behind Vagabon is complex and multifaceted herself. Tamko’s music is an extension of her own story, and it’s now out in the world for all to discover.
“Do with it what you will,” she said, “and I hope it heals you.”