Upcoming Welsh (U.K.) artist Thallo makes a haunting, otherworldly blend of bedroom/dream-pop with contemporary classical touches and subtle jazz textures, laced with her featherlight vocal and accompanied by high-end cinematic visuals.
On her enthralling new Crescent EP, Thallo explores a unique subject matter, and one deeply personal to her – immobility. The three track EP chronicles the artist’s own story about an on-going condition causing chronic pain which began in 2020 and left her temporarily unable to walk or stand, locked-in by her condition after the world had been released from lockdown, forced to cancel her planned appearance at this year’s SXSW (re-schedule for 2023).
The title track ‘Crescent’ was inspired by a breakup and friends moving away, with its warm, uplifting brass section mirroring the song’s bittersweet paradox – the undercurrent of inadequacy a dependence on loved ones during a long-term condition can cause, contradicted by feelings of gratitude for the support received. As Thalloexplains “I wasn’t as good a friend or girlfriend as I had wanted to be. I wrote the song upon realising I wouldn’t get the chance to ever make up for that imbalance and was left with the guilt of feeling indebted.”
This feeling of being an inadequate version of oneself is explored literally in the song’s music video, created by Abi Sinclair (Director/Producer) and Cat Jones (Director of Photography). It stars Thallo playing two versions of herself, with the broken Thallo trapped in an unknown surreal location in search for the complete, better version of herself.
The Crescent EP also includes the beautiful ‘Carry Me’, a gloriously, rich rush of multi-instrumentation and Thallo’s sublime vocal whirling in a jazz-infused dream before it’s emotive crescendo. Emotionally it captures the moment in time when Thallo first realised the seriousness of her condition; and the EP’s only Welsh language single, the climatic piano led ‘Pluo’ which explores the peculiar pain of watching the world return to normal following lockdown, whilst Thallo remained in what she describes as “My own personal lockdown.”
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