Watch: Tuka – Tattoo

Sometimes it feels like musicians are made overnight – you suddenly start hearing a certain track on the radio heaps, or a new artist seems to be everywhere you look / read / listen. While some careers do take a rapid trajectory, for the majority of musicians, achieving a level of notoriety and widespread exposure (particularly in a country like Australia, where the odds are already stacked against independent musicians, given the music-following portion of the population pales in comparison to the football fans) takes years of hard work. Sydney’s Tuka has been making music for nearly ten years. He’s put in time writing songs and performing with ARIA Award-nominees Thundamentals, worked and recorded with Chasm, Dialectrix, Two Toes and The Tongue, and recorded two solo albums.

After years honing his craft, Tuka’s ready to take 2015 by the balls: releasing “some of the strongest song writing I’ve ever produced”. A listen to recent offering Yeah Right, really confirms this: Tuka’s vocals take on a whole new, darker level of attitude, and the forward-thinking rap production work really stands out. Yeah Right’s off a new album Tuka will put out this July - Life Death Time Eternal – that’s set to be a deeply personal and heavily themed offering. Says Tuka of the album: ”Getting it to feel centred was really important to me… not too pop not too "underground”…not too melodic not too rap etc.”

You can see the personal side coming through in Tuka’s latest video for track Tattoo, also off the forthcoming release. Tattoo’s got a moody, downstated electronic beat, complemented by more chilled-out, gentle vocals from Tuka.  The clip, directed by Adam Callen, is really well done: set to an overcast autumnal palette, the clip’s narrative touches on loneliness, longing and the nature of unexpected connections.  Tuka elaborates: “This one explores that feeling of seeing an ex everywhere – walking in front of you, driving past in a car – but it’s really just someone else. It’s like being haunted. It happened to me a year after a break-up. This girl really gotten in my head… she’d made a permanent mark like a tattoo in my head.”

Watch / Listen to Tattoo below, and Yeah Right under that. Pre-Order Life Death Eternal here. It’s out July 10.

We're looking forward to more from this guy, for sure. 

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