by Louis Pelingen (@Ruke256)
Throughout her entire career, Thanya Iyer’s music has always carried the essence of healing, cherishing the gradual process of meditation that translates to her compositions and performances. Her band’s experimentation across jazz, pop, and folk never fails to be soothing in its free-flowing way, building an atmosphere that invites a positive spirit and emphasizes thoughtfulness to not just the individual but also the community that surrounds them. Even in a world that continues to be exhausting, Thanya Iyer’s projects exude a nurturing kindness that’s needed today.
That invigorating spirit continues to bloom all across TIDE/TIED, Thanya Iyer’s third album that compiles more lush and gleaming tones to her atmosphere. Her sense of collaboration with other instrumentalists and producers—most notably multi-instrumentalist Pompey, percussionist Daniel Gélinas, and harpist Emilie Kahn—gives these songs a lot of pristine textures. Amplifying the journey of recognizing our pain and getting ourselves out of that dark place, where time and communal trust are some of the important ways to gradually pull ourselves away from the lowest points of our lives, and move on an upward trajectory where healing will truly come full circle.
TIDE/TIED’s compositions take in a steady pace to allow Thanya Iyer’s reflective spirit to manifest, taking their time to open themselves up with the grooves and swells of strings, synths, horns, and harp subtly popping into the atmosphere. The arrangements lead to gorgeous crescendos, lilting ambiance, and Thanya Iyer’s breathy vocals that deliver such thoughtful comfort.
This approach to igniting their melodies allows Thanya Iyer and her live band to go in multiple directions of developing salving beauty. Songs like “I am here now” and “What can we grow that we can’t see from here?” have prominent nimble grooves that firmly pull in the lush atmosphere to tasteful effect. This is contrasted with “Doctor” and “Where does that energy go?,” where the former’s brighter pianos and the latter’s strings and synths are the ones that build off those tender crescendos, providing variance in the tone and scale.
Those songs eventually lead to the effervescent cuts of the record that sink most in the meditative tone. “Wash it all away” starts off with galloping drums just before the song eventually cools down, only to pull itself back together with Thanya Iyer’s affirmed vocal cadence wrapped around gorgeous strings, horns, and harp. “Waves/Hold/Tied” contains a 3-part lyrical structure woven around minimal keys and Thanya’s husky weariness, as she sings about her acceptance of the waves crashing onto her. Yet that only allows her to courageously hold onto her spirit and her friends, with instruments around her subtly firm tone on the track’s final third, showcasing the strength that she has gained for herself and others.
From all the records that Thanya Iyer has pulled together thus far, TIDE/TIED is her most comforting and brightest to date, where the communal aspect of the music and writing build waves of teeming crescendos and rich textures. An overall flourish that only puts the listener in its soothing atmosphere, with enough instrumental and vocal richness to allow the spirit and the body to be nurtured. The looming tides may wash up on everyone, but as long as we’re tied to the people around us, we can persist past troubled waters.