TYGERMYLK. Hayley Harland's U.K.-based venture has just released "Natali," a delightfully macabre and emotionally layered new track that sounds like you've come across a surreal entry in someone's diary and don't want to look away.
"Natali" is a macabre love song that is off-kilter, queer, and devastating in equal parts. It was inspired by an insane real-life incident, a freak accident in which Geode, yes, the rock fell and KO'd Harland when he and the song's true "Natali" were doming. Out of that weird genesis comes an anything-but-typical track. Layered in sliding time signatures and laced with a sly, jazzy saxophone, "Natali" slips from mood to mood like a dream you can't quite shake. It moves around in the same shadows as Big Thief and Phoebe Bridgers, but with its sparkly, jagged edge. There is a psychedelia simmering below the folk-rock textures, part whimsy, part woozy unease. The sax meanders through the song like a sprightly ghost, injecting moments of levity amid the aching vocals. And those lyrics? Harland isn't afraid to hit us where it hurts.
"Natali" is a story of timing's double irony, about how the universe can connect as it concerns. But it's also a story about queer love, about openness, about laughing while you cry. Harland is a deep-cutting storyteller, though TYGERMYLK constantly winking.
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