About
The story of Tarpan starts with the story of The Happy Buttons. Tarpan arose out of her ashes to terrorize the heavens.
Tarpan was conceived in the late 2000s and started making demo recordings and private jam sessions for friends in the 2010s, inspired by how witch house embodied the perkygoth vibes Thomas had strived for in the early The Happy Buttons era, in the late 90s. Eventually, it was decided that their first project would be to re-record some classic tracks from The Happy Buttons. For that Tarpan performed as The Happy Buttons for the purpose of re-recording three classic tracks:
- Alone, a somber ambient piece in which a lonely truck driver after a dark slog through a rainy highway, deliberately careens to his own demise
- Werewolf of Paris, a frantic B movie horror-themed catchy deathrock song about a necrophagous maniac
- Dreams Donβt Come True, a mopey downtempo darkwave track jointly written by Thomas and Dan when they were still in high school about recurring dreams of love, of gender affirmation, of precious items being found, all dashed upon sunrise
Having given The Happy Buttons a proper sendoff it couldnβt give itself while it was together, Thomas then dreamed up what would be Tarpanβs first single, Deploy Pyre, loosely inspired by the events surrounding Christopher Dorner, but with a twist wherein the deranged true believer is the one deploying the fuel and itβs all those he sees as part of the wicked system burning with him, in a mass murder-suicide purification ritual. The motifs are the effects of violent propaganda on the mind and deep religious symbolism. An open question is asked to the listener - how could this have been better, how could this maniac have made things right in an effective and lasting way? He found himself part of a wicked system, immersed in the very indoctrination that sustained it. How different are you from this tragic person?
As we speak, Tarpan is working on an epic concept EP, Dreams of the Dead, exploring scenarios where the listener is again given a question mark - are these wild, implausible stories what really happened and lead to a tragic demise or are they the hallucinations of a dying mind?
Tarpan is Thomas Webb, stage name Tamsynne the Terrible and whichever musical friends are working with them that day. We make nightmare pop music, striving for being fun, dreamy and incredibly creepy all at the same time, with roots in post-industrial, dark ambient, dream pop, death pop and ethereal goth and darkwave.
