Tangerine
You’re Still The Only One
On their debut album You’re Still The Only One, Los Angeles-via-Seattle band Tangerine find themselves grounded in a world at once natural and mystical, with each track evoking images of clear blue skies, dusky desert magic, pink glowing sunsets, a full moon, or pouring rain. Songwriter Marika Justad’s lyrics infuse this space with all the bittersweet, existential feelings that come with getting older, and experiencing loss and change. You’re Still The Only One is a journey towards letting go in order to embrace a full spectrum of love, sorrow, pleasure, and pain; it’s a journey towards acceptance of the instability in the world, in order to find peace. All throughout, Justad calls upon the elements to ruminate on the raw, organic, and at times contradictory forces that exist in both people and in nature.
“After a death in my family, I found myself in a process of negotiation with the universe,” she explains. “It became an urgent question for me, this idea of how to reconcile with a world that is unreliable, one that seems to reject any simplistic sense of right or wrong, or of meaningful narrative, that we try to place on it. It’s like something just sort of broke open, and I found myself unable to look away from the primal forces at work in the world. I’m trying to tease apart the beauty from the ugliness.”
Tangerine was formed in 2012 by Justad (vocals, guitar), her sister Miró Justad (drums), Toby Kuhn (guitar, production), and former bassist Ryan Baker. Encouraged by early successes such as spins on KEXP and 107.7 The End, and a streaming hit with single “Feel This Way,” the Justads and Kuhn relocated to Los Angeles as a trio in 2017. Soon after, they joined Bleachers on the road as main support for a North American tour and worked with Zach Dawes (Lana Del Rey) and Mikey Schuman (Queens of the Stone Age) on singles “Sly Moon” and “Fever Dream.” But the family loss in 2019 brought everything to a halt, and the band took a much-needed break to process and grieve. In the stillness that followed, Justad and Kuhn began to write what would become their first full-length album as a duo.
Full of yearning, tender love, curiosity, and self-deprecation, Justad’s restless narrations on You’re Still The Only One contemplate releasing fear, judgment, and the desire for control in order to experience both pleasure and pain more fully. The album, anchored by Kuhn’s eclectic production, takes Tangerine’s signature dreamy sound to richer, fuller heights. Light pours out of each melodic hook and Justad’s airy vocals add a sense of shimmering whimsy. Opening track “Timeless” is a lush, expansive song evoking Kings of Leon and Mazzy Star–a love song laced with ambiguity and existential dread. “There’s this uneasiness, this little tug of instability beneath it all,” says Justad. “Sensuality, nature…wanting to feel connected to the organic world, the good and the bad, the blood, the guts, the romance, the sex, the fruit, the rot, the seeds…everything. All of this was on my mind as I began writing.” Conversely, “You’re Still The One” is playful and breezy; addressing a lover, Justad expresses a desire to be better for them, and to shake off the blues in order to embrace a joy that feels so close but just out of reach: “I want to soften / I think I can / For you, baby…I’m feeling good / I'm on thin ice / Can I move in with you on cloud nine?”
An unexpectedly powerful standout, the simple and intimate “Thieves” finds Justad narrating a tortured figure swinging at imagined foes over a field of gently finger-picked guitar. “‘Thieves’ reflects on a relationship with a troubled soul – someone who always has an enemy to fight or a fist to raise, even if it’s against nothing and they’re just whiffing at the air,” she says. “It’s about seeing that person lost in the bigness of the world, recognizing both our connection and the distance between us.”
Intoxicating and buoyant, “Lonely Ride” feels like a culmination of all the lessons Justad mines across You’re Still The Only One: change, heartbreak, stepping into the unknown, lying on the floor in defeat but still knowing there’s hope. “It’s about the gut-wrenching pain of walking away from a good thing because you know it’s ultimately for the best; that liminal space when it’s time for a change, but you have absolutely no idea what comes next. Leaping, but not knowing if there’s anything or anyone waiting below to catch you. This song is very bittersweet, but also very hopeful,” Justad explains. “It’s about someone who has been to hell and back with the scars to prove it, but can still find beauty in the mystery of things.” The album, brimming with exuberant, gorgeous soundscapes, does just that. Through it all, Justad expresses a determination to stay clear-eyed and unbiased, and to welcome the beauty as well as the darkness.
