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Tekla Peterson is the new pop-oriented solo project helmed by Wisconsin’s Taralie Peterson. Peterson has been a member of Spires That In the Sunset Rise since their founding in 2001. Most recently a duo with Ka Baird, Spires has a sound that began deeply rooted in underground folk music, but evolved into a much more overtly jazzoid space. We released their 2017 collaboration LP with Chicago percussionist Michael Zerang, Illinois Glossolalia (FTR 285).

But Peterson has always had solo projects going. First she had Tar Pet, an exceedingly fine exploration of so-called wyrd folk. Later there was more avant/jazz-oriented, Louise Bock, with whom we did a 2017 solo LP, Repetitives in Illocality (FTR374) and 2021’s All Summer Long Is Gone (FTR382) — a duo album with string wizard, Pat “PG Six’ Gubler.

More recently we have been introduced to a “pop” persona, Tekla Peterson, who debuted with a 2022 cassette called Heart Press.

Heart Press was created in reaction to the end of a long personal relationship, and is a cool, uneasy pairing of contempo-pop readymades and lyrics questioning some foundational aspects of romance. Mine to Give is Tekla’s similarly-styled, though constantly evolving, sophomore effort.

Assisted by Rob Jacobs on bass and beats, Peterson’s vocals, keys, bass and sax are up front at all times, and do a massively fine job defining a musical/emotional space that is simultaneously pop-oriented and avant garde. The songs and arrangements often have a surface feel akin to something you’d hear on commercial radio, but there are lots of strange experimental textures and techniques that enliven, enrich and transform the material into something that is transcendently “other.” Parts sound a bit like what I imagine Taylor Swift has going. Inside those walls you’ll hear echoes of acid folk, avant jazz and post-industrial compositions, but only if you pay careful attention.

As with other female artists who began their journey in the sub-underground and kept going (Natalie Mering’s Weyes Blood, Meg Remy’s U.S. Girls), Peterson creates deeply coded music with enough surface sheen to keep slow pokes from ever perceiving what’s going on in the depths.

The spelunker’s pay-off. Great stuff.

–Byron Coley, 2024

Tekla Peterson

Releases

Mine To Give