New York, NY (Top40 Charts) New York-native, Los Angeles-based songwriter Taali, born Talia Billig, has released her visual debut with a video for track, "Hear You Now" today-an evocative female empowerment anthem. Taali fuses a beguiling mix of layered vocals, chamber pop and avant-electronica to directly address trauma, love, and identity. Shot by director/writer/actor Madelyn Deutch, the "Hear You Now" video straddles the line between gentle and powerful. Penned in 2017 as women were beginning to speak up about their traumas, Taali wrote "Hear You Now" as the first step toward addressing her own. The track itself features an earworm post-chorus of incredible women worldwide, including singers, but also female songwriters, directors, executives and attorneys.
On the video, Taali stated, "'Hear You Now' is an inner monologue spoken in second person. It is meant as a rallying cry to lift one's self from the trauma of a regressive culture and collective lived experience."
The video features Taali surrounded by a fold of curly haired guardian angels in a color saturated reverie, each standing fully in her power and easing Taali towards her own. The track draws heavily from Jewish cultural imagery on the day of repentance (i.e. "Bow your head," "Beat your breast,") as its subject calmly and powerfully apologizes to herself and moves forward.
Taali draws direct inspiration from the empowering Judaic culture passed down from her family, and the uplifting stories of the fierce women she surrounds herself with. She was raised on lessons from her parents about radical Jewish ladies like labor activist
Clara Lemlich and anarchist author Emma Goldman, and instead of "kid music", heard her Mom's folk (Dylan, Simon, Mitchell) and Dad's soul (Wonder, Withers, Rawls), plus Israeli singers like Ofra Haza.
"I grew up with these beautiful Judaic harmonies all around me, but for the longest time I left my heritage out of my music," she says. "A good friend recently told me the best thing you can have in life is culture, and she was right. The more I make this music, the closer I feel to my ancestry and myself."
Drawing from a rich and diverse musical background, Taali received a BFA in jazz voice, learning the industry working for Blue Note Records by day and performing around NYC by night, and creating her own "Orchard Sessions" video series with her favorite musicians. She has been a songwriter for various artists, and also toured for two years singing background vocals for José James.
Taali is releasing via her own
Rainbow Blonde Records, a label she and José
James co-founded with the ideal of an artist collective where every person, from artist to engineer, is a vital part of the story. Taali will open for José
James on tour in Japan this fall, ahead of a busy 2019. Stay tuned for more exciting announcements on the horizon.
