I have been to plenty of poison darties. There are times that my head pounds so much afterwards that I have to take multiple excedrins. Is that the plural? Regardless, give a listen to Tatum Gale’s new track “Poison Darty.” I doubt that you have the same experience.
Today, songwriter/producer Tatum Gale shares “Poison Darty,” a brand new single off his forthcoming debut album, Pretty Green (due May 2023).
How do you find yourself again after getting lost in the sauce? “Poison Darty” by indietronica maven Tatum Gale finds getting back to solid ground after a maudlin bacchanal isn’t so simple. A nocturnal spirit and spindly synth emblematize a bender fugue state alongside a charmingly demonic internal monologue by Laura Jinn, creating a hazy space that’s both self-aware and self-indulging—a contradiction all too familiar to anyone who knows it’s getting late, but isn’t ready to head home.
The songs on Pretty Green, the debut record by songwriter-producer Tatum Gale, began as reactions: against self-destruction, against the musical landscape young artists create in, against the callous indifference of the world at large, and in some ways, against the self.
Yet it’s from this reductive headspace that Green assumed its vibrant dance-pop shape, taking form as an uncompromising, synth-driven response to life’s myriad cruelties that finds joy in the fact there are still things worth fighting for. The album is a glass-half-full assessment of Gale’s desire to care for those closest to him, even as that desire clashes with his personal shortcomings, both as an individual and as an artist.
“Pretty Green as a title is meant as an expression of hope that the Earth can, in fact, be saved, and that you must carve out your own ways to support yourself and those you love,” Gale says. “But it’s also an acknowledgment of the artist’s relative helplessness—especially when you’re just starting out.”
In line with Green’s introspective qualities, Gale gave himself the space necessary to examine and reflect on both himself and his music, a process that began in an appropriately contemplative setting. Armed with just a defective Casio and the human voice, he began writing Green’s tracks during the summer of 2020 in the guest bedroom of his partner and collaborator Laura Jinn’s childhood Cincinnati home.
From there, the work continued in Brooklyn, gradually metamorphizing from feverish, forthright demos into a maximalist lifework of indie synth—and similarly moving beyond its baseline Cincinnati Casio into warm Rhodes tones (recorded in NYC), as well as recordings of Gale’s performance on the piano in his childhood home in Portland, Maine.
Graced by collaborators like Laura Jinn (“Poison Darty”) and building around the basslines of Wyatt Shapiro (“This is starting to feel good again”), as well as the drums of Jackson Price (“Your Day,” “Chickadee Eye,” “800m”) and the barn-burning sax of Dexter Moorse (“800m”), Green runs the gambit of electronic subgenera, incorporating found sounds, big beats, and satisfactory grooves in a coherent yet versatile package.
