When they were still children, Helena Ros and Marta Torrella played by changing the initial of their first name to that of their last name. They found it very funny because it looked like a “filled cake” and in 2016 they decided to call their musical project, one of the most unusual on the current scene, that. In their works, they combine traditional and electronic music with lyrics in different languages ranging from Italian to Judeo-Christian, Catalan and Latin. They have just released their fourth album, It’s a question, with the French label Latency, an exercise which explores the notions of tragic thought through different protagonists. His first single was If you see the frogwhich they define in their presentation as: “a traditional Sephardic melody and original lyrics based on the biblical story of Jephthah”. In one month, they achieved 35,000 views on YouTube and 25,400 on Spotify.
Ros and Torrella have known each other since they were in elementary school. At the age of 16, they began singing in the same choir and in the afternoons they would get together to hang out and perform the songs they had learned. There, they gradually discovered that their two voices combined in a special way and they put together a repertoire that contained everything from early music to traditional songs with musical arrangements they made themselves. Both had acquired considerable musical training since school: Torrella already played in a clarinet quartet at the school where she studied and Ros sang in a women’s choir of the Orfeó Català.
Electronics came into play when they started giving concerts. “This was presented to us as the need to give air to such a dense repertoire with a sound other than our voices, at the same time as the need to give rhythmic support to certain songs,” they say by email at elDiario.es. they are on tour and request that the interview be done through this channel – jointly. “We started playing with a very simple drum machine which we used on a few songs. When we recorded our first EP, the songs also required some production touches, although very simple, and with that we started to think about reverberations, delays and some samples in the context of our songs, this is no longer the case a cappella“, they detail.
Over the years, they have dared to combine pre-existing material with their own compositions, a method with which the figure of the author is blurred. In his new work, which extends into the Mediterranean geographical space like the previous ones, letters in Catalan, Spanish, Latin, Judeo-Spanish and Italian come together. “Using different languages is an asset for us. Both at the phonetic, sound and semantic level. Each language has different sounds, which makes it sound a specific way that it wouldn’t sound if it were in another,” they assert. “As a listener, listening to a song in Latin makes you takes you to a place and opens up a conceptual and imaginary world different from the one a song in Catalan takes you to.”
These words come from various sources. It can be already existing texts to which they put music and vice versa, covers other songs or own compositions of music and verse. “What we like is to reference where what we use comes from or what inspires us to compose, so that as a listener, you can also pull the thread,” they say. In addition, they are very aware of the works of artists with whom they share space and generation such as Marina Herlop, Maria Arnal, Anna Ferrer, Júlia Colom or Cocanha. Furthermore, they comment: “We have also become obsessed lately with the work of Miyu Hosoi, Sissi Rada, Arooj Aftab and Daniela Pes. »
In addition to her new album, Tarta Relena also presented the installation Mermaids and robots. In search of the siren song in times of climate stories during the last Thought Biennale 2024, which took place in the Catalan capital last October. It is a work of art and science prepared in collaboration with Joan Llort, oceanographer at the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, with whom they study the fate of the Mediterranean in the face of the effects of climate change through mythology.
This isn’t the first time they’ve collaborated with another designer. For example, they helped North American artist Holly Herndon present her artificial intelligence device at the 2021 edition of the Barcelona Sónar festival. “When there are interesting proposals with interesting people, we don’t hesitate to jump on the bandwagon. We think it’s the best school, doing things with good people who show you other ways of understanding music, art or the world,” they say.
In 2008, Bob Boilen and Stephen Thompson, host of the show All songs taken into account respectively producer of American public radio NPR, set up the now legendary Tiny Desk Concerts. The idea of recording performances next to the announcer’s table at Washington headquarters was born after a Laura Gibson concert in a hall with disastrous acoustics: they wanted to enjoy live music. It was precisely Gibson who inaugurated this series, available on YouTube, in which all types of performers played.
Last April, Tarta Relena became the first in the history of Tiny Desk Concerts to sing in Catalan and the fifth in Spain (before her were Concha Buika, Diego El Cigala, C. Tangana and Omar Montes). The duo says the opportunity arose because they attended Global Fest, an event held in New York. “Some artists who play at the festival then do a Tiny Desk,” they explain. “It was a very good experience: the local people are super nice and determined, we were super comfortable during the filming. “We are very satisfied with the result.”
With the launch of It’s a question They have embarked on a tour which, for the moment, has taken them to the Unsound festival in Krakow or to the Fira Mediterrània in Manresa. On November 16, they will perform at the CentroCentro in Madrid and on the 28th of the same month at L’Auditori in Barcelona. These shows will be a little more theatrical compared to those that accompanied previous albums. “We have prepared a very monumental but simple setting which places us in an ancient temple. We play in such diverse places that it’s always very stimulating to discover them and also to know the audience who will accompany us.
The girls who gathered in the afternoon to perform the songs they learned in the choir did not know that in the future they would record albums, perform on stage or even come to New York. “We started with no pretensions, we are very grateful for everything that is happening. We work hard to rise to the opportunities presented to us and we benefit greatly from them,” they conclude.
