KGNU presents TAARKA

About TAARKA:

“Their voices sound fantastic together…Enion is a marvelous violin player, and David is her equal on mandolin and guitar.” -No Depression

Taarka seamlessly fuses brilliant instrumental chops with songwriting of great depth and creativity, cooking up musical “sustenance that stays with you long after you’ve pushed away from the table.” Adventurers through the many landscapes of music and true world travelers, veterans of 1000-year floods and veggie oil tour buses, David (voice, mandolin, guitar, and octave mandolin) and Enion Pelta-Tiller (voice, 5-string violin) spin stories and melodies that delight, inspire, and move all who listen.

Once described as “a collision between Django Reinhardt and David Grisman” (SF Weekly), Taarka’s strikes a balance between well-crafted songs and spirited instrumentals, expanding on their beginnings as a purely instrumental string band putting a modern spin on Gypsy and Eastern European folk music. Taarka has drawn from wide-ranging influences over the past 16 years. Since 2006, when David and Enion landed in Lyons, CO, known for its bluegrass and new acoustic scene their compositional output has taken on a decidedly American bent, with vocals added to enhance the stories told in their songs.

Travel throughout North and Central America and Europe has infused their sound with flavors of Western and Eastern folk traditions, jazz, rock, bluegrass, old-time, gypsy, Indian, and Celtic music. Noteworthy is their inclusion of an ancient Galician (Spanish) ballad, Meirol, in their live shows and on their forthcoming album (as yet untitled). Their seventh studio album, Fading Mystery, was released in March 2017.

Taarka’s joyous recordings benefit from starry guest performances and David’s masterful production work, each a carefully crafted travelogue tracing a phase of the groups evolution. Yet unsurprisingly, Taarka’s calling card is its colorful live show. Of Taarka’s performance at the Oregon Country Fair, Synthesis Magazine wrote, “Taarka began driving the painted and costumed crowd into a dancing frenzy they combined Roma, Klezmer and jazz, infusing their rousing and exciting tunes with breakneck Zappa-esque breakdowns and insurmountable gusto. Regardless of your particular musical tastes, Taarka is a band that simply must be witnessed.”

The band is equally potent whether as a down-and-dirty duo act or a stellar extended line- up featuring a top-notch array of fellow travelers. Taarka and its members have performed with members of the Grateful Dead, Phish, and String Cheese Incident, and shared stages with Linda Ronstadt, The Decembrists, Darrel Scott, John Cowan, Yonder Mountain String Band, Peter Rowan, Darol Anger, Joe Craven, ALO, Keller Williams, Danny Barnes, Steve Kimock, Taj Mahal, Widespread Panic, The Samples, and Aquarium Rescue Unit, Kaki King, Rob Wasserman, Tony Furtado, The Motet, Dan Bern and The Everyone Orchestra.

Taarka has performed at major festivals across the continent including Festival International de Chihuahua (MX), Music Fest Vancouver (CA), High Sierra, Pagosa Folk n’ Bluegrass, The Britt Festivals, Joshua Tree Music Festival, Oregon Country Fair, Sisters Folk Festival, Telluride Bluegrass, Mendocino Music Festival, Bumbershoot, Seattle Folklife, The Millpond Folk Festival and many more, and has been a guest at Bluegrass Underground and Music City Roots, both in Nashville. Gifted teachers as well as performers, Enion and David have offered workshops at music schools and camps from Mark O’Connor’s String Conference in San Diego to Escola Municipal de Musica Folk e Tradicional in Vigo, Spain.