Vagabon

With a smoky voice often delivered with a distinctive attack and fade, Laetitia Tamko (aka Vagabon) makes intimate indie rock and electronic pop songs. Her stylistically wide-ranging full-length debut, Infinite Worlds, arrived in 2017. Still incorporating an array of influences, she returned with a more polished sound and reflective tone on her follow-up, 2019′s Vagabon, and took a more playful turn on her next album, 2023′s Sorry I Haven’t Called.
Growing up in Cameroon, Tamko soaked up the traditional music that surrounded her; when her family moved to New York City just as she was starting high school, her musical horizons were broadened to include indie rock. She studied engineering in college, then began writing and recording songs, at first with just her voice and guitar. In 2014, she released a song on Bandcamp, “Vermont,” which featured Eamon McMullen on drums and bass. Later that year, Vagabon put out the Persian Garden EP on Miscreant Records. After featuring other people on drums and keyboards for recordings, she dedicated herself to learning the instruments so that on her next release, 2017′s Infinite Worlds, she’d be playing both. The album was recorded with Chris Daly at Salvation Recording Co. in New Paltz, New York, with a small group of musicians helping Tamko bring her vision of dreamy indie rock and electronic pop to life. It was released by Father/Daughter Records in early 2017. She then quit her engineering job to pursue music full-time.
The self-produced follow-up, Vagabon, was largely written on a laptop while she was on tour in support of her full-length debut. Blending digital and analog components in arrangements, she recorded it at home and in various studios before the album was mixed by John Congleton (the Decemberists, Angel Olsen). The completed Vagabon arrived on Nonesuch in late 2019. Two years later, she returned with collaborations including the folk ballad “Reason to Believe,” featuring Courtney Barnett, and a remix of “Winona” by Miloe on which she appeared alongside Jamila Woods. Sorry I Haven’t Called, a joyous yet still intensely personal album incorporating more dance influences than her previous records, was released in 2023. The album was partially written and produced in a remote village in Northern Germany, then finished in Los Angeles with co-producer Rostam. ~ Tim Sendra & Marcy Donelson