untitled (recs)

The debut album from Glasgow-based artist TAAHLIAH is the kind of record she would have spun in her room as a teenager, and it aims to be that for the listener. With just glimpses of the slick and sexy dance music she’s become known for, it’s a bold step into weightless balladry and classic pop songwriting.

The record releases on untitled (recs), who have partnered with TAAHLIAH since her very first single, ‘Brave’. Following the AIM award-winning EP ‘Angelica’, ‘Gramarye’ is a vulnerable and confessional offering that sees TAAHLIAH sing on record for the first time. “I always knew this record would somehow inhabit my emotions,” she says. “Angelica was about my body, whereas Gramarye is about my mind.”

The title is a folkloric word related to magic and necromancy. TAAHLIAH first came across it in an essay by Terre Thaemlitz (aka DJ Sprinkles) in the book The Future Has a Silver Lining, where Thaemlitz notes that “the English word ‘glamour’ has its roots in the Scottish term ‘grammar’ in the sense of gramarye, or magic.”

Made with a close-knit group of collaborators, including naafi, Tsatsamis, Fred MacPherson, and Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange), the record combines the acoustic and the synthetic to create a palette that lives up to its otherworldly title. Shaped in part by her experience collaborating with the London Contemporary Orchestra, the record is TAAHLIAH’s boldest statement so far. From the confident kick thump of ‘Boys’ to the sensitive confessional writing on ‘Holding On / Let Me Go’, this debut bares all sides of its creator.