Tarta Relena and Yasmin Williams

In January 2019, Tarta Relena released their first album, Ora Pro Nobis, on The Indian Runners label. Winner of the Enderrock Critics’ Prize for best folk album of 2019, it consists of eight a cappella songs with a subtle electronic presence. In April 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdowns, they released their second work, Intercede Pro Nobis (Indian Runners), recognized by Rockdelux as the best national EP of 2020. The duo’s first full-length album, Fiat Lux, is an exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the cyclical nature of history and human behavior. Just as love poems by Sappho of Lesbos or traditional Sephardic songs deal with emotional problems we face in the present, the self goes through the same timeless processes of joy and pain—whether in ancient Greece, medieval times, or today’s global pandemics.

Growing up in northern Virginia, Yasmin Williams was inspired to learn electric guitar after she beat the video game Guitar Hero II on expert level in 8th grade. She taught herself to play electric guitar and other stringed instruments by ear before deciding to focus on acoustic guitar for its versatility, along with the ability it gave her to build on the lap-tapping techniques she developed playing Guitar Hero. Williams recorded and mixed her first EP, Serendipity, in 2012 while still in high school. She went on to receive a BM in Music Theory and Composition from New York University in 2017. Her inspirations include Jimi Hendrix; Nirvana; Earth, Wind & Fire; Sister Rosetta Tharpe; and Amadou Kouyate. Williams’s most recent album, Urban Driftwood, was released in 2021 on the radical feminist record label Spinster.