Vagabon
When asked what gets under her skin, Brooklyn-based singer Laetitia Tamko has an answer: “The categories that people have for who deserves to be treated with humanity,” she tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, “and who doesn’t.” It’s just one of the recurring topics that the singer—who goes by Vagabon—has examined since her 2014 debut EP *Persian Garden* and its 2017 follow-up LP, *Infinite Worlds*. “Naturally, it comes up in my music,” she adds. “To have the lines be less rigid about who deserves to be treated what way, and who deserves the space to feel safe in one room versus another.” With her second full-length, *Vagabon*, the singer’s mission is clear: to document her triumph over self-doubt, and to create an empowering space for others. Originally from Cameroon, Tamko honors the hard work of all the women who paved the way for her while simultaneously offering a hand to the next generation on “Every Women” with the line “All the women I meet are tired/They just kick up their feet prior/To my sittin’ down.” This theme of fellowship also connects to “Wits About You,” with Tamko rejecting any offer of success that doesn’t include her community. Amidst the calls for togetherness, the singer recalls some of the arduous experiences that helped her realize her self-worth, like the toll relationships have taken on her (“Water Me Down”) and ruminating on what could have been (“In a Bind”). The album opens and closes with “Full Moon in Gemini,” but on the reprise, the Montreal band Monako regenerates Tamko’s reflective anecdotes into an eager declaration about the singer’s future.
“Break the rules you think you are bound by.” That’s the recurring sentiment Lætitia Tamko carried with her through the writing and recording of her second album under the Vagabon moniker. Her first, 2017’s Infinite Worlds, was an indie breakthrough that put her on the map, prompting Tamko to tour around the world and quit her job in electrical/computer engineering to pursue a career in music full-time. Tamko’s self-titled Nonesuch Records debut finds her in a state of creative expansion, leaning fully into some of the experimental instincts she flirted with on the previous album. This time around, she’s throwing genre to the wind. Vagabon is a vibrant culmination of influences, emotional landscapes, and moods; a colorful and masterful statement by an artist and producer stepping into her own.
On her self-titled sophomore effort, Laetitia Tamko leaps with both feet into new sounds and new horizons.
Laetitia Tamko embraces new textures to stunning effect on self-titled album
'Vagabon' is an ambitious album overflowing with generosity and empathy, warm in production and rich in theme, even if it largely lacks the punch that made 'Infinite Worlds' so immediately memorable.
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With her second album as Vagabon, Lætitia Tamko presents a genre-defying and thematically diverse thesis on loneliness, alienation, and the power of community.
Vagabon's Lætitia Tamko is looping back; her self-titled second album is riddled with synths and curious, searching house-pop that's periphe...
Laetitia Tamko, better known under the moniker Vagabon, has released another indie-pop masterpiece - her second album ‘Vagabon’ is simply
Vagabon (Laetitia Tamko) eschews the DIY indie-rock with which she made her name and embraces a more electronic sound on her self-titled second LP.
The album flits between topics of love, feminism, and cultural identity with relative ease.
Swapping crunching guitars for softer electronics, Laetitia Tamko’s second album is both sharp and tender