Tatiana Zagorac grew up surrounded by pop music. Whether she was sitting in a car listening to the radio, or taking in the latest music videos on TV, she says “the structure of a pop song is something that has just always been clear to me.”
That ingrained understanding of pop arrangement now plays multiple roles in Zagorac’s life. As a songwriter for CYMBA Music Publishing, the Edmonton native gets to exercise her songwriting skills for artists all over Asia – although she often has to re-work her North American aesthetics to fit a more J-Pop or K-Pop mould. “I think writing there has changed and developed my skill set in a huge way,” she explains. “I’d been a lyric person all my life, and suddenly the lyrics were the least important part. It forced me to develop my melody writing quickly.”
Satisfying her urge to churn out Top 40-style hits through her work with CYMBA has allowed her personal project, Talltale, to skew in a more electronic direction. To Zagorac, experimenting with electronic music gives her the opportunity to “completely shape the sonic landscape that your songs live in.”
Her latest album as Talltale, A Japanese Fever Dream, draws inspiration from her years of working abroad. Opening track “Tokyo,” feels like a stroll through the city’s neon-soaked anime centre, Akihabara, while “Shed My Skin” sums up the surreal state of drifting through a foreign place, in the lines, “Already feels like a memory/ already feels like a fever dream.” It’s a lush, cinematic record that’s an ode to a country, but also celebrates a wanderlust spirit that’s always seeking new perspectives.
Back at home, Talltale is also finding success. Zagorac was named an “Artist to Watch” at the 2018 Edmonton Music Awards, and she took home the Electronic Song of the Year Award at the 2018 Canadian Songwriting Competition. While Zagorac says Talltale may lay low for the rest of 2019, save for a few upcoming music videos, she has her eyes set for new music in 2020: “It’ll be a big year for me!”