Tara Nome Doyle: "From my personal experience, internationalism and cultures mixing is a really positive thing"

The word ‘myth’ has always been a bit misleading when describing the ancient Greek fables many of us know so well. It’s a term that indicates falsity, even though those stories have kept an acute wisdom and applicability.

It’s why we still talk about feeling like Sisyphus pushing that boulder up the hill whenever we’re caught in one of life’s dead-end cycles, and the reason we name-drop Icarus when someone fails to heed their limitations and suffers as a result.

Truth from Hellenic legend is the fulcrum of Berlin-based, Irish-Norwegian artist Tara Nome Doyle’s new album, Ekko.

“It’s based on Echo and Narcissus,” the singer explains from her Berlin apartment. “There’s an essay I read by a Norwegian writer called Lena Lindgren. She wrote about this myth from a sociological perspective, highlighting Echo and what she could mean in our time.

“People generally have an idea about what narcissism is, but Echo is often forgotten. The author of that essay highlighted that you need both of those characters: the self-absorbed one but also the one that gives them room, and loses themselves in others.”

Social media immediately comes to mind…

“It’s quite common for people to say that our generation is narcissistic with social media,” Doyle continues. “But Lindgren makes the point that the base of our nature is imitating each other. So rather than being super self-absorbed, we’re actually absorbed in what other people are doing and trying to emulate them.”

The tale served as a source of inspiration when Doyle was in the creative doldrums.

“A couple of years ago I was questioning everything about everything I’d ever done,” she says. “There were a couple of relationships with people that I’d been working with for a long time – that were part of my identity as an artist – which ended, or shifted into something new.

“There was a feeling of everything falling apart and having to build it back together myself. The character of Echo just resonated with me. I was feeling so lost. When I read that essay, I felt for the first time in quite a long while that there was something here that was really exciting. I love when people are able to weave together ancient myths with modern analysis.

“That’s something that inspires me, and it also gave me a topic to write about that actually felt meaningful at the time.”

Ekko, Doyle’s third LP, is a project which explores pain, farewells, new beginnings and self-acceptance. She confided in a remote cabin in rural Norway during the writing process, and took up the bulk of production duties for the first time in her career.

The result is a brief, beautiful, half-hour collection of sweet sonic etherealities. You could drown in the harmonies and spaced-out arrangements.

Ekko.

“It was really about going back to simplicity,” Doyle explains. “This album was really an attempt at going back to reducing everything else and just focusing on the voice and the songs.

“The thing that’s really natural for me is singing. I’ve done it since I can speak, so there’s a different level of confidence and intuition with my voice than there is with my hands on an instrument.

“That’s something I’ve tried to lean into more. There are tools you can use to sing into a microphone which transform your voice into MIDI straight away. So you can still have that experience of hearing what it would sound like with strings or with trombones or whatever, while still  using your voice improvisationally.

“The trap you can fall into is thinking that to make something sound big, you need to add a lot of elements. From a mixing standpoint, the fewer elements you have, the bigger you can make each element sound.”

In her last chat with Hot Press in 2022, Doyle was candid about her own mental health struggles, detailing a severe anxiety disorder that forced her out of school when she was 16. Ekko’s theme of growth has been applicable to this part of her life too.

“I decided to go back to therapy,” she says. “And yeah, and it was amazing. I mean, I only went for a couple of months and now for the first time since I was 16, I feel like I’m living life without anxiety.

“If people think they have a certain mental illness or something that has been bothering them, from my own experience – don’t give up on trying to find a solution. Because right now, I’m really experiencing life without mental illness, which is amazing.”

The shelves in Doyle’s Feng Shui apartment meanwhile, are lined with thick leather-bound books that hint at the thoughtfulness behind her creative process. She’s based in the trendy Kreuzberg neighborhood, an area known for a vibrant artistic scene which mirrors the creative spirit of Berlin as a whole.

Does the city’s expressiveness influence her music?

“I think there’s a sense of freedom,” Doyle notes. “There’s very much this sense of live and let live and there are so many different types of people that come here. Nobody looks at you twice on public transport in your pyjamas, so I think there is a sense of comfort and freedom that comes from that that is really special.”

The German capital is also one of Europe’s most diverse metropolises. Doyle herself is of Irish and Norwegian descent. She’s previously made songs in Norwegian and the last track on Ekko is sung in German.

She also expresses a desire to write a tune as Gaeilge one day, though admits to slacking on the Duo Lingo front as of late.

When it comes to forming a sense of identity and belonging, she considers herself a Berliner.

“I was very lucky growing up in this part of Berlin,” she says. “I think there were three kids that were fully German in my class. Everyone else was mixed in some kind of way. So I think that made me feel very comfortable with having a different background. Everyone had parents that spoke different languages. And it was something that we all had in common.

“That’s really beautiful, and is another reason why I really appreciate growing up here.”

Not everyone has been as enthusiastic about multiculturalism as of late.

The recent German election yielded an unsettling result: a surge of support for the AfD party, a far-right organisation with extremist elements. Their alarming rise in popularity casts a shadow over inclusivity. Could we bring it back to Echo and Narcissus : an electorate captivated by a dangerous and self-absorbed ideology?

“I’ve been listening to a lot of news and a lot of discussions, and just trying to learn more and more about everything that’s happening,” Doyle says. “I’m always torn about sharing my opinion on things. It’s a super complex topic.

“I definitely think that from my personal experience, internationalism and cultures mixing is a really positive thing. I think it’s really the responsibility of the government to make sure that people have the ability to integrate, and bring the richness from their own culture and their own background.”

• Ekko is out now.