17 November 2023 - 0 Comments

Tarn PK is a Wellington, New Zealand based artist, producer, and songwriter.

Having released three EP’s - Fantasy (2019), Monarch (2021) and SugarCoated (2022) - Tarn is exploring new sonic worlds and developing a distinctive style, setting him apart from the surrounding landscape. Tarn has gained over 1.6 million streams on Spotify, with Cheap Ecstasy gaining over 770,000 streams and being picked up by U-NXT (a Universal Music subsidiary), Talk To You also landing on global New Music Friday playlists, and he has been on various local/regional Spotify playlists. Tarn has also appeared on regional and global Apple Music playlists.

Having focused on stripped back songs on the Monarch EP, Tarn developed the SugarCoated EP by incorporating elements of hyper pop, alt pop and left of centre inflections. In 2023, Tarn has been developing his next body of work which will continue in a new direction. The first taste of this is the single Papier-Mâché a dynamic slow burn, incorporating a new sonic palette of distorted guitars, synthesisers, and deflated drum sounds.

About Papier-Mâché

"I wrote Papier-Mâché whilst on a writing trip to Auckland. I was there to work with other artists as a producer and had one artist cancel a session. At a loose end, I decided to spend the day working on something from myself. I was really inspired by being in a new location and wrote most of the song in that day. It was all based around the chorus guitar tone and a Yamaha DX7 synth (popular in the 80’s) which felt enticing and new.

Throughout the creative process I was visually inspired by stripping away the colour from my previous releases to a more minimal feel found in the single artwork of Isaac Rajan. Whilst my previous work had felt visually connected to the night, I felt ‘Papier-Mâché’ was reflective of the daytime in summer, with bright blues, beige and white. I remember on the day I wrote it listening to Kate Bush’s L’Amour looks Something Like You and being inspired by the way those chords felt.

Lyrically the song is reflective of a time in my life where I’d finished University and had to go into the big wide world and haven’t known where to go. It’s generally about feeling directionless and dealing with the pressure of making something of yourself. I recently listened to a good philosophy podcast on ‘achievement culture’ and to me the song resonates a lot along those lines and also with my own feelings of needing to be productive. When writing the song, I wasn’t exactly sure what it all meant but, in the interval, I have placed it where I feel like it sits for me.

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