Talulah: An astonishing talent and standout artist of 2024

Stephen Price

2024 has been a pivotally important, and incredibly chaotic, year for the arts in Wales.

With sweeping cuts facing the cultural sector and finances at breaking point for some of our most treasured institutions, you’d be forgiven for expecting Wales’ poets, performers, artists and musicians to be showing the same level of fatigue.

And yet, in a perfect display of yin and yang, I’ve yet to have witnessed a year like 2024 for such unrelenting brilliance in the Welsh arts.

From major shows by Meinir Mathias and Mary Lloyd Jones, to stage productions such as Nye and Mumfighter, and Welsh literature (figuratively) on fire (new bookcase wanted, please, Siôn Corn), Wales’ art scene is in a state of unrest.

Mesmerising

Talulah released their mesmerising debut EP, Solas, in September, and on first hearing it, I understood it to be one of the strongest collections of new music in 2024 from any artist, not just from Wales, but from anywhere in the world.

Solas combines soft and ethereal sounds with textures of jazz and percussion – the perfect showcase for Talulah’s elegant and honeyed vocals.

At the heart of Solas are Talulah’s seamless multilingual reflections on the power of relationships and observations about the revival of minority languages.

The north Wales-born singer, songwriter and Triskel Awardee’s debut EP also concerns Talulah’s meditations on multilingualism, power, and the politics of care.

Painstaking detail

Opening track Suo sums up the painstaking detail involved in making such an ‘effortless’ sounding sonic project.

Layered vocals sit atop rainy soundscapes. A gentle toe-dip to whet the appetite, and then it’s straight to the lapping shores of Galaru.

A video for Galaru hit YouTube only last month – a sublime and cinematic piece of queer art that brings to life the sensual and hypnotic nature of the song.

Perhaps because it came out prior to a holiday in Malta, the EP formed the soundtrack to my most recent visit to the island, and has taken on a decidedly Mediterranean glow for me.

Repeated listens instantly transport me back to the scorching Gozo sunshine, to waves lapping on Mellieha’s shores, to the bustle of Valletta – something not too unsurprising either when dissecting the truly global and colliding feel of the EP.

Just like the conflicting state of the arts in Wales right now, Galaru is perhaps the yang to the yin of the other highlight of Solas – the devastating Gad i mi Grio (Let me Cry).

Thankfully, (or should I say, hopefully), my days of painful heartbreak are done now, but Talulah’s delivery, their mastery of sound and instrument, and their voice as instrument, are direct kick-in-the-chest reminders. This is music with feeling, from someone who you can hazard a guess feels things deeply.

Like me, Talulah seems to place this track at the epicentre of Solas.

They shared: “I love playing glittery harmonies and putting them together with words that discuss relationships, queerness and growing up in general. ‘Gad i mi Grio’ (Let me Cry) is the most important piece for me on the EP.”

“It discusses someone who wants to give their all to someone else, even though they don’t feel well.

“I composed the track on the piano, before I even gave myself space to process my personal experiences.”

Keep it Moving comes next, and is the sensual soul of the EP. Shimmering sounds like prickled skin, drifting in and out of Welsh and English, the coolest of cool jazz touches.

It’s giddying. Intoxicating. Brave.

Tungz picks up the pace, taking the sensuality from the bedroom to the dancefloor. The merging between languages, to partners, to the hips..

And like all the good things, it leaves you wanting more.

I want an album, I want it on CD, I want to be up front at a concert, feeling the music in my bones and running down my face.

Smooth mastery

Talulah’s true power in Solas is their ability to flow and shapeshift with a skilful mastery that is completely and uniquely their own.

Transcending lyrical boundaries, the EP takes repeated listens to decode and decipher, something that gives a music and language nerd like me an added level of audio pleasure.

This isn’t music made for borders, or boxes, and it’s music only Talulah could make.

Months on, I find myself returning to Solas again and again.

Talulah told Music Mag: “I started out writing from pretty specific personal experiences. My experiences as a queer person have come into songwriting.

“Initially, I was just writing for me – I wrote my first single ‘Byth yn Blino’ back in 2018.

“I didn’t intend on sharing it with anyone, it was just there as a vault for documenting the emotions I had as a newly out queer person. But then I figured there wasn’t a lot (if any) Welsh language explicitly queer music, and I wanted to get the ball rolling.”

They added: “I would of course love to see bilingual music embraced more by mainstream media. But for now, I’m just going to keep doing my thing – writing in Welsh, in English, in whatever feels good – whatever feels right. I just have fun with it.”

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, ranking has no place in the arts… but… never one to play by the rules myself.. I’ll break my self-imposed rule to say one thing.

And that’s simply, ”wow”.

What an absolutely astonishing, achingly moving, mesmerising and clever body of music.

I cannot wait for more.

The arts in Wales might be in trouble at the top, but the creatives on the ground making the things that matter, the work that will endure? They’ve never been doing a better job.

Beautiful, beautiful chaos.

Listen to Solas on Spotify here.

Purchase Solas on Bandcamp.

Follow Talulah here.