Americana Alt.Country CD Reviews

Taarka
'Making Tracks Home'
(Self-Released, 2014 / 2015 Europe)
www.taarka.com

It's no mere coincidence that there are tracks entitled "Waterbound" and "River's Eddy Blues" on this latest album from Taarka. Husband and wife team David and Enion Pelta-Tiller, core and constant members of the band, emerged from the Colorado floods of 2013 (which wrecked their property and left a shocking impact on the whole community) determined to continue to make music. It's their life's passion.

Like many others in and around the small town of Lyons, Boulder County, the Tillers lost their home -and studio- when the St. Vrain River burst its banks with devastating and thunderous fury. 'Making Tracks Home' is almost an exorcism of the experience as they attempt to make sense of the calamity and create some good from bad.

If there's a more bluesy feel on some of the tracks, compared to the gypsy-jazz / Eastern European folk vibe of previous offerings such as the impressive 'Adventures In Vagabondia', for instance, well, they have every right to tell it how it is. Yet, there's unmistakable pep in their step too, a 'we can celebrate and get through this' determination, just as Spring can wash away the gloom of Winter.

Joined by a grand cast of musician friends to pull off this magnificent feat, together, they cast off and ride the wave of emotions. Those floods were declared a national disaster and left their valley crushed. What better way to help healing process than to get together with friends and kindred spirits to sing and play to raise the spirits?

The Taarka BIO:

Described by SF Weekly as a 'collision of Django Reinhardt and David Grisman', Taarka is the new acoustic 'supergroup' (Flagstaff Live) 'presenting masterfully deep Americana and Gypsy jazz string band music!' Led by the husband-and-wife team of David Pelta-Tiller (mandolin, tenor guitar, vocals) and Enion Pelta-Tiller (five-string violin, vocals) Taarka fills out its unique sound with impeccable guitarist Ross Martin and bass powerhouse Sam Grisman on their release 'Making Tracks Home'. Now with a touring band made up of award-winning bassist Troy Robey and prodigious young guitarist Mike Robinson, Taarka is bringing their otherworldly, energetic music to venues across the US, Canada, and Mexico.

David, a versatile picker raised in Virginia on a steady diet of bluegrass, Celtic, classical and Gypsy jazz, and Enion Pelta-Tiller, an award-winning classically-trained violinist who can switch seamlessly between Bartok and bebop (not to mention Gypsy jazz, punk, rock, bluegrass) began their journey together in 2001. After meeting at a Brooklyn Browngrass gig, the two began a Gypsy jazz busker act in the New York City subway before hitting the road as Taarka.

Taarka’s live shows strike a balance between well-crafted songs and spirited instrumentals these days, expanding on its beginnings as a purely instrumental string band putting a modern spin on Gypsy and Eastern European folk music. Taarka has drawn from wide-ranging influences over the past ten years. Sophisticated listeners would be able to distill flavors of Western and Eastern folk traditions, jazz, rock, bluegrass, old-time, Gypsy, Indian, and Celtic music all in a string band setting. Taarka has lately been gaining notice for their songwriting, which is informed by traditional bluegrass, oldtime and folk from America and Europe, 19th century poetry, and rock inspired by performances with some of the greatest names in songwriting today, including Darrell Scott, Greg Brown, James McMurtry and Nathan Moore, but which incorporates sweeping pop and popping Gypsy elements.

Since 2006, when David and Enion landed in Lyons, CO, known for its bluegrass and new acoustic scene their compositional output has taken on a decidedly American aura, with vocals added to enhance the stories told in their songs. Their fifth studio album, 'Adventures In Vagabondia', was released in January 2013. Taarka’s powerful acoustic rock instrumental, “A Whole New You”, was recently included as part of the soundtrack to Maximum Pictures feature-length documentary, '1971'.

Taarka’s joyous recordings benefit from starry guest performances and David’s masterful production work, each a carefully crafted travelogue tracing a phase of the groups evolution. Yet unsurprisingly, Taarka’s calling card is its colorful live show. Of Taarka’s performance at the Oregon Country Fair, Synthesis Magazine wrote: 'Taarka began driving the painted and costumed crowd into a dancing frenzy, they combined Roma, Klezmer and jazz, infusing their rousing and exciting tunes with breakneck Zappa-esque breakdowns and insurmountable gusto'. Regardless of your particular musical tastes, Taarka is a band that simply must be witnessed.

The band is equally potent whether as a down-and-dirty duo act or a stellar extended line-up featuring a top-notch array of fellow travelers. David and Enion have performed with members of the Grateful Dead, Phish and String Cheese Incident, Yonder Mountain String Band as well as Darol Anger, Joe Craven, ALO, Keller Williams, Danny Barnes, Steve Kimock, Taj Mahal, Widespread Panic, The Samples and Aquarium Rescue Unit, Kaki King, Rob Wasserman, Tony Furtado, The Motet, Dan Bern and The Everyone Orchestra.

Taarka has performed at major festivals across the country including High Sierra, Pagosa Folk n’ Bluegrass, Joshua Tree Music Festival, Oregon Country Fair, Sisters Folk Festival, Telluride Bluegrass, Mendocino Music Festival, Bumbershoot, Seattle Folklife, Nedfest, Lightning in a Bottle, Berkeley World Music Festival, Aspen Bluegrass Festival, San Luis Obispo Mozart Festival, The Millpond Folk Festival and many more.

Enion Pelta-Tiller began classical violin studies at age three, but her education was always supplemented by improvisation lessons from her jazz guitarist father. By sixteen she had taught herself to compose impromptu melodies in styles from classical sonatas to East Indian ragas and jazz standards. Enion attended Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD, working towards a viola performance degree, while also studying English at Johns Hopkins.

Eventually she landed in NYC, where she performed cutting edge music straddling punk, free jazz, and classical with various local musicians, and landed a gig with the crown prince of Hungary’s New Wave music scene, Menyhart Jeno, as the violinist in Mr Con and the Bioneers. She traveled to Hungary in the summer of 2001 to play the main stage at the Pepsi Sziget, Europe’s largest music festival, playing immediately before Run DMC and Morcheeba.

Upon her return she focused more on composing and performing the music she and David had been working on together, and the two decided to make a life of it. Enion has performed onstage with Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bob Weir and Vince Welnick of the Grateful Dead, Darol Anger, Darrol Scott, John Cowan, Fareed Haque and many others.

David Tiller began playing guitar at age eight, spurred on by his musician father. His childhood in Virginia was spent learning the abundance of bluegrass and Celtic and rock music there, but by age fourteen he was enriching his knowledge with classical and jazz guitar training at the North Carolina School of the Arts, and began exploring the mandolin.With a diligent practice schedule and great aspirations, David took on the mandolin full time in his late teens, and was a founding member of the celebrated High Sierra Festival Record label’s band ThaMuseMeant, based in New Mexico. In ThaMuseMeant’s 8 year history, they toured all over the United States, sharing stages with the likes of the Dave Matthews Band, Sheryl Crow, Ricki Lee Jones, Blues Traveler, String Cheese Incident, Leftover Salmon, YMSB, Greg Brown, and many others.

In 2000, when the band broke up, David moved to NYC to follow his heart and study jazz, where he met Enion Pelta, a member of Brooklyn Browngrass. They began writing together and formed the group Taarka to feature their music.