VAGABON SHARES NEW SINGLE AND VIDEO “LEXICON”
SORRY I HAVEN’T CALLED OUT THIS FRIDAY ON NONESUCH
ON TOUR WITH ARLO PARKS UPCOMING DATES W/ WEYES BLOOD & NOURISHED BY TIME
TOUR DATES:
9/13 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso ~
9/14 - Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso ~
9/15 - Brussels, Belgium @ Ancienne Belgique ~
9/17 - Berlin, Germany @ Huxley’s Neue Welt ~
9/21 - Paris, France @ L’Olympia ~
9/23 - Minneapolis, MN @ Walker Art Center (DJ Set)
9/28 - London, UK @ Eventim Apollo ~
10/21 - Detroit, MI @ El Club *
10/22 - Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground *
10/24 - Brooklyn, NY @ Music Hall of Williamsburg *
10/26 - Somerville, MA @ Crystal Ballroom at Somerville Theatre *
10/27 - Philadelphia, PA @ Underground Arts *
10/28 - Hamden, CT @ Set Space Ballroom *
10/29 - Washington, DC @ The Atlantis *
10/31 - Barcelona, ES @ Sala Apolo ^
11/2 - Lyon, FR @ Le Transbordeur ^
11/3 - Milan, IT @ Alcatraz ^
11/4 - Lausanne, CH @ Les Docks ^
11/6 - Berlin, DE @ Astra Kulturhaus ^
11/7 - Utrecht, NL @ TivoliVredenburg - Grote Zaal ^
11/8 - Paris, FR @ Pitchfork Music Festival
11/9 - Antwerp, BE @ De Roma ^
11/11 - Glasgow, UK @ Old Fruitmarket ^
11/12 - Leeds, UK @ O2 Academy ^
11/13 - London, UK @ Pitchfork Music Festival
11/14 - Nottingham, UK @ Rock City ^
12/6 - San Francisco, CA @ The Independent *
12/8 - Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s *
12/9 - Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret *
12/10 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios *
12/13 - Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room *
~ w/ Arlo Parks
^ w/ Weyes Blood
* w/ Nourished By Time
This Friday, September 15, Vagabon, aka Lætitia Tamko, will release her new album, Sorry I Haven’t Called, which has already received critical praise, via Nonesuch Records. Today, she shares one final taste of the album, a video for the Mariah Carey-inspired “Lexicon,” the most jubilant track on an album comprising the most playful and adventurous music of Tamko’s career.
Tamko credits album co-producer Rostam (Vampire Weekend, HAIM, Clairo) with taking the song over the finish line and unifying her vision. “I wrote the song, the verses, the chorus, all of the bridge, and all of that, but I couldn't find a place for it on the record sonically,” she says. “When I revisited the album with Rostam in LA, he said give me a minute with it’ and he just got it.”
Sorry I Haven’t Called marks a new transformational era for Tamko. Across 12 vibrant tracks that she wrote and produced primarily in Germany, she channels dance music and effervescent pop through her own sensibilities. These conversational songs are alive and unselfconscious, a document of an artist fully embracing her vision and reclaiming her joy.
Born out of grief after her best friend died in 2021, Sorry I Haven’t Called is a warm and resilient album about embracing the ecstatic moments wherever you can by knowing how you love and how you mourn. It’s an LP inspired by both communal dancefloor revelations and the clarifying peace of solitude, an emotional rebirth as well as an artistic one. “This record feels like what I've been working towards,” says Tamko. “When I think of this album, I think of playfulness. It's completely euphoric. It's because things were dark that this record is so full of life and energy. It’s a reaction to what I was experiencing at the time, not a document of it.”
The devastating and unexpected loss of her best friend unmoored Tamko but also gave her a newfound clarity. “The things that I thought I cared about, I no longer cared about,” she says. “I had a realization that I need to make sure to feel everything that comes my way.” She decided to sell her things and move to a small lakeside village a few hours north of Hamburg in northern Germany to process everything. “There's no linear path to grief, and everyone handles it differently, but uprooting my life just felt like exactly what I had to do, ” says Tamko. “I needed a place to think and go through my discomfort privately but to also explore the newness and urgency I was feeling in my life.” In the village, her phone didn’t work and there were no close grocery stores or restaurants, so she spent her time alone working on music.
Despite the palpable absence in her life, her new songs were her most disarming and ebullient yet. The first one she wrote was “Carpenter,” a mesmerizing track anchored by a tangible bass groove, where she sings, “I wasn’t ready to move on out / but I'm more ready now.” It’s a fully-realized track and feels like the culmination of her catalog so far. “A lot of the music that I was making there had nothing to do with my grief at all,” says Tamko. “Once I gave myself permission to make a record that's full of life and energy, I realized that’s the point of this album. In the midst of going through all of these tough things, it became a record because of the vitality that these songs had.” For Tamko, there’s power in pursuing happiness.
While writing in Germany, Tamko nurtured her love for dance music and let it seep into her new songs. “The only things that were giving me access to a feeling were dance music and going to a rave in an extremely dark club where if I wanted to cry, I could do it and be around other people.” she says.
After a few months in Germany that included marathon writing sessions and a whirlwind romance, Tamko decided to stay with friends in Los Angeles and finish her record. She enlisted co-producer Rostam to help her unify her vision.
