Tarta Relena w/ Meara O’Reilly - Hockets For Two Voices at The Iron Horse on Saturday, January 24 2026
The project was born in 2016 by two singers who explore a cappella the sounds of the different styles in vocal music. Tarta Relena wants to build a repertoire that goes from traditional music to original songs that are related to the geographical area of the Mediterranean. They do not fear to widen the limits of the sacred and the profane. Experimentation is the core of their identity, and the blend of vocal techniques is their creative engine. In the arrangements, the two very different timbres live together with the synthetic sounds and electronic samples. Always looking for complexity in simplicity and maximum expression with the minimum of elements.
Tarta Relena presents a new album that flirts with the notion of tragic thinking: diverse characters who find themselves facing unstoppable consequences, known and unknown at the same time. A conceptual mix of what fate has ready for us, our thirst for knowledge and the inability to integrate future versions of ourselves. They try to capture in music and lyrics the tension and mystery of what we do not understand, coming from logics that escape our usual ways of existing.
Meara O'Reilly is a composer and artist, focusing on perception and new musical interfaces. Her Hockets for Two Voices album was released on Cantaloupe in 2019. It was named in several year-end best of lists, including Art Forum, Bandcamp, and Second Inversion. Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo reviewed the album for Talkhouse, saying it “sends you, moves you, destroys you with beauty“.
Her music served as score for Daniel Soares’ short film “Bad for a Moment”, which won Mention Spéciale at Cannes in 2024. She wrote, performed, and recorded vocal arrangements for several tracks on the 2020 grammy nominated Fleet Foxes album, Shore. Most recently, she co-created a musical primate language for Isaiah Saxon’s upcoming A24 fantasy film “The Legend of Ochi”.
She is co-creator of the Rhythm Necklace app, a musical sequencer that uses two-dimensional geometry to create rhythm. In 2013 she completed a permanent exhibit at the Exploratorium, titled Chladni Singing. Her collaboration with design firm Snibbe Interactive on sound-based 'cymatic' concert visuals for Björk's Biophilia album was included in the world tour.
Her work has been presented at Carnegie Hall, Bang on a Can, National Sawdust, Los Angeles' Walt Disney Hall, SF Davies Symphony Hall, the Bauhaus Dessau, and as part of Wild Up’s Endless Season. Selected past performances also include The Kitchen, SFMOMA, the Berkeley Art Museum, Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in New York, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, opening for artists such as Beck, Kronos Quartet, Meredith Monk, Laurie Anderson, Lucky Dragons, Dirty Projectors, Deerhoof, Michael Hurley, Bill Callahan, Matmos, and Dinosaur Jr. She toured internationally as a solo musician and in the bands Feathers and Brightblack Morning Light.
