Tasha

Schedule

Sat Dec 04 2021 at 08:00 pm to 11:00 pm

Location

PhilaMOCA | Philadelphia, PA

Advertisement
Tasha w/ Mini Trees & S. Raekwon at PhilaMOCA
About this Event

100% Vaccinated Event — Proof of Covid-19 Vaccination Required To Enter


Tasha

Tasha’s second album, Tell Me What You Miss The Most mingles pockets of introspection with wide, expansive, marveling at what’s yet to come. Born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, Tasha is a musician who writes songs that take loving and longing seriously. Whether dwelling in the sad thrum of an impending break up or the dizzying, heart thumping waltz of new infatuation, here is an album that traces one artist’s relationship to herself in love. Full of deep, invigorating inhales and relieved, joyful exhales, Tell Me What You Miss The Most is an exquisitely crafted breath of much needed air.

“Won’t you lay near me please / goodbyes aren’t easy to swallow / Here take my heart for me / I don’t need all this old sorrow” Tasha sings, her voice smooth and honeyed in the first track of the album “Bed Song 1.” She stands on the brink of saying farewell to something once-sweet, the sentiment swirling into the slow-walking pace of the second track, “History,” which wonders aloud “Was it me / Did I not prove to you how far I’d go”. Still, the album refuses to stagnate, instead taking the listener on a whirl across a much-missed dance floor in “Perfect Wife,” calling to mind the sheer pleasure and giddiness of dancing hand-in-hand with a pretty girl. “Perfect Wife” is also a track that demonstrates Tasha’s musical versatility and showmanship, featuring a seamless, slightly retro chorus embroidered with the lilting chirrup of flutes as played by Vivian McConnell.

Yes, Tell Me What You Miss the Most isn’t just a catalogue of tenderness----it’s also a showcase of Tasha’s growing and formidable musicianship. “When I made Alone at Last, I had only been writing songs for two years. I hardly even knew what kind of song writer I was. But this record feels much stronger as far as a representation of my songwriter and musicianship,” says Tasha, adding “I did feel like I was piloting it in a way that I haven’t really felt before.” Take the heady soprano whisper of “Sorry’s Not Enough” that crests into the wave-crashing roll of dissonance propelled by Ashley Guerrero’s insistent drumbeat. From its attention to instrumentation, the clean strumming of guitars both acoustic and electric, to the steady stretch of Tasha’s vocals across each verse and chorus, this is an album that follows an artist as she produces a sound all her own.

In its second half, the album becomes more spacious, peering with clear eyes toward a blue horizon threaded with a folk tinged, out-of-doors sound. Chimes recorded outside her grandfather’s house twinkle on “Love Interlude.” On “Burton Island,” Tasha sings of “the sun’s last song,” asking “honey dance for a while, dance for a while.” In fact, many of these songs seem to invite gentle dancing, the type of breezy bodily weaving one might engage in on a Saturday morning or a firefly-dotted summer night. These are swaying songs,” Tasha says, extending an invitation to her listeners to rock back and forth, cradled by her music.

“I was inspired by a distance I felt from myself,” says Tasha of the album, “the writing was kind of born from this desire to get back to an intimacy, or honesty, with myself.” Other inspirations include kissing, long drives in nature, her mother, and “winter and all that it allows (being alone inside, wrapped up in something warm, feeling things deeply.)” Her list of inspirations is a collection of types of touch; fleeting affectionate touch, the brush of a knit blanket, the bracing grip of feeling one’s own skin twinned in a palm. So too does the album veer in and out of touch with Tasha herself, tracing tenderness and loneliness, the paradox of feeling held and utterly abandoned at once.

As the album winds down, the feeling of a sun setting or a year ending begins to glow, as if Tell Me What You Miss The Most charts a path through the desolate starkness of a personal winter, the blossoming of an internal spring, the blaze of a heart’s summer and then the golden dénouement of autumn. Regarding the shape of the album itself, Tasha discusses her intention for it to feel like a finished, fully realized piece of art. She says, “I wanted very much for this to feel like an album with a start and finish, where there’s an arc that’s brought back around.” An organic feeling of rise and fall lifts the album from beginning to end, especially given the bookend of “Bed Song 1” and “Bed Song 2.” Between these Bed Songs lies a journey of emotional burnishing, of loss, realization, re-imagination, with dreams bounding toward the future. Still, we begin and end in a place of intimacy and rest, reflecting Tasha’s long held belief in the necessity and power of respite. Listeners might recognize the bed as not just an album through line but a career one. Even while Tell Me What You Miss The Most represents growth and change, Tasha notes that “there are parts of me as a songwriter and emoting poet-person that carry over. Bed might be the obvious connection.”

Listen to Tell Me What You Miss The Most as the sun peeks its downy head over the rooftops. Listen as you sit down to your cup of coffee, listen as you remember someone you once loved and wonder what might have been. Listen as you imagine different pasts, their many colors laid out before you, dizzying in their potential. Listen as the sun sets again and the moon rises, her cool face perfectly hung in the night sky. Listen as you imagine all the people you might someday be, all the mornings you’ll grow to greet. Listen as you pull someone close. Listen, and let the album pull you close.

Mini Trees

Living room pop.

S. Raekwon

S. Raekwon, born Steven Raekwon Reynolds on July 10, 1995, is a singer/songwriter and producer from New York City by way of Buffalo, NY. His life so far has granted him the warm allure of someone well-acquainted with matters of the heart. He always finds the feeling even when the words evade him, every note handled with care. The S. Raekwon project finds Reynolds documenting traces of a life both affected and infatuated by the power of difference. Some differences define us, some memories bear too painful to share, but S. Raekwon symbolizes a surrender to the power of one’s intimacy, reframing his circumstances to earn his truth in terms both whimsical and hardened.

Reynolds’ journey began as a biracial Black boy in working-class Buffalo. He never met his father and grew up with a white mother who loved musical theatre and playing piano. He didn’t cut his teeth via a DIY scene, or in bands with neighbors and classmates; the isolation gave him space to channel his guarded nature into a freedom forged by the noises in his head. He gravitated towards guitar, finding wonder in solitary moments while weathering the tension of how his differences impacted his formative experiences. He learned early to keep his hands up in this world; music offered him an outlet to drop the guard, to listen and experiment with no proclivity towards the ordinary.

After graduating from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Reynolds moved to the East Village in NYC, an area he’s been fascinated by since family trips as a teenager. In Spring 2018, as he worked a day job and sought connections with others, Reynolds wrote and tracked the first S. Raekwon demos in his dingy studio apartment. These first songs were a matter of necessity, an insatiable desire to externalize the internal fire of a life with many missing pieces. This moment of catharsis soon proved more fruitful than anticipated: rather than self-releasing, Reynolds shopped the demos around, leading to the release of his 2020 debut single Parts Towards Whole b/w A Crow’s Smile via Saddle Creek’s Document Series.

Where I’m at Now, released via Father/Daughter, is the product of two years of S. Raekwon tuning himself to the echoes surrounding his essence, past and present. In a first draft, Reynolds fashioned himself from the cloth of diaristic singer/songwriters before him, pouring himself across abstract soundscapes in an attempt to address the racial insecurities clouding his life’s experience. The album we have now finds Reynolds freeing himself of the expectation to package his struggle; he doesn’t waver from the search for meaning, but he’s also concerned with matters more sweet. This is a collection of moments from the purview of a late bloomer, pushing himself past the isolation that serves him to create, yet keeps him defensive when facing the world. It’s an album of love in all its forms: innocent, vulnerable, gentle, questionable.

Recorded between New York City and a six-month stint at his girlfriend’s parents’ home in Edwardsville, IL during the pandemic, Where I’m at Now is the album S. Raekwon made for himself with a clarity that arrived as he located his missing pieces in the world. Delicate as his approach may be, chaos truly underscored the two working years as Reynolds not only moved to lift the weight of the world off his spirit but connected with his roots. In a serendipitous turn of fate, Edwardsville was not only the same town Reynolds’ father once went to college but is also in close proximity to St. Louis where most of Reynolds’ Black family members are located. When he didn’t work on music, he protested against police violence in Missouri, and eventually reconnected with this family for the first time since his childhood. Upon leaving Edwardsville in September 2020, Reynolds quickly finished the rest of the album, charged by a new fire in his spirit and the light of his blood driving him towards a new beginning.

Where I’m at Now embodies several palpable shifts in the S. Raekwon project, and Reynolds as a man. Completely self-produced and self-recorded (save for drums on two songs,) the music’s driven by the relentlessness of the East Village and the quiet serenity of Edwardsville. The abstractions of his earlier musings transform into a warm wave of genreless coherence, drawing influences from across R&B, rock, folk, and pop to build a record that shines in its quiet spaces as much as its sweeping movements. Whether breakdown or ballad, S. Raekwon no longer hides in the codified cloaks of his metaphors and lends an honesty that grants passion and precision to the smallest details. He gives feeling to the pretty imperfections of our memories, be it the first kiss, the last touch, or the rage screaming within.

Simply put, Where I’m at Now is an album where S. Raekwon is no longer invested in hiding. These records don’t contain answers, but signals toward what feels like the right direction. The roaming child, painfully aware of his difference and eager to understand it, is now a man walking tall on the path to knowing himself. Through his journey - of Blackness, of love, of pain and perseverance - he grants us permission to walk tall all the same. This music serves as a gentle, yet intentional reminder that we only need to be who we are in the moment, and we’re worth becoming who we know we can be.


❗ ? PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING BELOW ? ❗

For all shows in the months of October, November, and December, R5 Productions will require all guests to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Proof of vaccination may be given in the form of a paper copy or digital image of a guest’s vaccines card or other documentation showing you are at least two weeks past your final dose.

Unfortunately, negative test results alone will not be accepted at this time. Over the past two weeks we have had to turn away dozens of fans, because their test results have been delayed or other various issues with Philadelphia's testing infrastructure. This policy may eventually change if testing improves in the city. 

On the evening of the show, when not eating or drinking, we kindly ask all guests to wear a face mask for their own protection, as well as that of our staff, and the artists performing. Almost all of the artists playing have made this request themselves and it is one we fully support.  

Any questions or concerns? [email protected]

Advertisement

Where is it happening?

PhilaMOCA, 531 North 12th St., Philadelphia, United States

Event Location & Nearby Stays:

Tickets

USD 15.00

R5 Productions

Host or Publisher R5 Productions

It's more fun with friends. Share with friends