Talitha. talks about ‘Hello, Talitha.’ and lets us into her musical world
“Hi, it’s me Talitha!” 27-year-old singer-songwriter Talitha. chirps as she sits in our studio two days before her full album, Hello, Talitha., drops. Both on and off stage, she’s as bubbly as she’s charming, with a smile that will warm even the coldest cockles of one’s heart. If Tan were a colour, she would be a sunshiney yellow.
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As she eases into the conversation, she speaks freely about her music, inspirations, and influences with so much enthusiasm and energy that it’s easy to see that she really loves what she does. She has had a long musical journey that spans more than a decade, which is now culminating in her third album release–and it’s still only the beginning. “From day one, I’ve said that I’d like to do music for the rest of my life until I can’t anymore, so it’s the most consistent thing in my life, and I plan on sticking with that,” she said.
The fun-loving, fun-sized artiste’s Instagram chronicles a burst of activities, and she’s often seen riding a wave, mastering surfskate tricks, breaking a sweat at the gym, travelling the world, and just living life to the fullest. But today, she tells Tatler all about the one constant thing–music.
Congratulations on releasing your album! How are you feeling?
I am... thank you. Firstly, thank you. Thank you for congratulating me! I’m feeling excited because I’ve been wanting this to come out for a while now. I sat my manager down in December or at the end of November 2022, saying, “I want to write an album. I don’t have a theme, but I want to write an album for 2023, and I’m committed to coming into the studio every week, twice a week, and I want to write.” Every day, I would go into the studio like, “Okay, I feel like writing something like this.” There was no theme because I wanted to explore sounds. There were a lot of obstacles this year so I’m excited and relieved that it’s finally coming.
Why did you decide that this was the right time to release this album?
It was more like, “Oh, there’s space here. This makes sense. Okay, we’re just going to release it here.” Realistically, that’s what went on. We aimed for October because I’d usually have a performance on my birthday in November, which I know some fans look forward to because I think my first-ever launch was on my birthday. Ever since that birthday launch–for the song Please Stay, which has now been rebranded to Mummy–fans look forward to these birthday performances. I did that almost every year, but I don’t know whether I’ll be doing one this year per se. Maybe a belated birthday performance in conjunction with the album.
Also, I needed space and time to write music. I started writing more in November and December last year, then the whole of January and February. I took a break, but I was almost done with all seven... eight songs. It was just the finishing touches. We wanted space to be able to release singles so we can let the song shine a little bit instead of just dropping a whole album and saying, “Hey!” because I know people’s attention span is super short right now because of social media. So you’ve got singles, and then you’ve got the album with three new songs.