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 sounded like a ‘filled cake’ and in 2016 they decided to call their musical project that, one of the most unusual on the current scene. In their works they link traditional and electronic music with lyrics in different languages ranging from Italian to Judeo-Christian, including Catalan and Latin. They have just released their fourth album, It’s question, with the French label Latency, an exercise that explores the notions of tragic thought through various protagonists. His first single has been If you see the frogwhich they define in their presentation as: “traditional Sephardic melody and original lyrics based on the biblical story of Jephthah.” In one month they have achieved 35,000 views on YouTube and 25,400 on Spotify.
Ros and Torrella have known each other since they were in primary school. At the age of 16 they began to sing in the same choir and in the afternoons they got together to hang out and perform the songs they had learned. There they discovered, little by little, that their two voices combined in a special way and they put together a repertoire that contained everything from ancient music to traditional songs with musical arrangements that 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 female choir from the Orfeó Català.
Electronics came into play when they started giving concerts. “It was presented to us as a need to give air to such a dense repertoire with some other sound other than our voices, at the same time as the need to give rhythmic support to some songs,” they tell elDiario.es by email – they are on tour. and they ask that the interview be done through that channel – jointly. “We started playing with a very simple drum machine that we used on a couple of songs. When we recorded our first EP, the songs also asked us for some production touches, although very simple, and with this we began to think about the reverbs, delays and some samples as part of our songs no longer so 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 authorship is blurred. In his new work, which moves in the Mediterranean geographical area like the previous ones, letters in Catalan, Spanish, Latin, Judeo-Spanish and Italian come together. “Using different languages is wealth for us. Both at a phonetic, sound and semantic level. Each language has different sounds and this makes it sound in a specific way that it would not sound if it were in another,” they maintain. “As a listener, listening to a song in Latin takes you to a place and opens up a different conceptual and imaginary world than the one a song in Catalan takes you to.”
These words come from various sources. They can be texts that already exist to which they put music and vice versa, covers of other songs or own compositions of both music and verses. “What we like is to reference well where what we use or what inspires us to compose comes from, so as a listener you can also pull the thread,” they declare. Furthermore, 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. In addition, they comment that: “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 has also presented the installation Sirens and robots. In search of the siren song in times of climate narratives in the last Biennial of Thought 2024, which took place in the capital of Catalonia last October. It is a work of art and science prepared together 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.
It is not the first time they collaborate with another creator. For example, they helped the 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 do not 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 or art or the world,” they say.
Back in 2008, Bob Boilen and Stephen Thompson, host of the show All Songs Considered and producer of the American public radio station NPR respectively, put on the now legendary Tiny Desk Concerts. The idea of recording performances next to the announcer’s table at the Washington headquarters arose after a Laura Gibson concert in a venue 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 have played.
Last April, Tarta Relena became the first in the history of Tiny Desk Concerts to sing in Catalan and the fifth from Spain (before her were Concha Buika, Diego El Cigala, C. Tangana and Omar Montes) . The duo says the opportunity arose because they participated in Global Fest, an event held in New York. “Some of the 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 decisive, we were super comfortable during the filming. “We are very happy with how it turned out.”
With the launch of It’s question They have embarked on a tour that, for the moment, has taken them to the Unsound festival in Krakow or the Fira Mediterrània in Manresa. Next November 16th 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 the previous albums. “We have prepared a very monumental but simple set that places us in an ancient temple. We play in such diverse places that it is always very stimulating to discover them and also get to know the audience that will accompany us.”
The girls who got together in the afternoons to perform the songs they had learned in the choir had no idea that in the future they would record albums, play on stages, or even come to New York. “We started without pretension, we are very grateful for everything that is happening. We work hard to live up to the opportunities that are being presented to us and we are enjoying it very much,” they conclude.
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