Tarune Lets Us Cry
by Yoko Zhu
He introduced himself as a New Yorker first, then a twin, then as an actor who pivoted to music. As a teenager, he engineered a psychology radio show (in which emotion-stricken guests would call in about their life matters). During this time, he learned the reigns of audio recording. Giullian Yao Gioiello–under the stage name Tarune–dropped his newest single “is this the end?” on June 17 and intends to release an album titled “let him cry.”
The album title “let him cry” summarizes the thesis of Tarune’s work: allow yourself to feel everything, including the deepest of grief and its undercurrents.
The phrase “let him cry” emerged from a note his late uncle scribbled, whom Tarune described as a mentor and best friend, but in some ways, his inadvertent muse. Tarune recalled that he’d been in the hospital visiting his sick uncle. The reality of it had set in: he wasn’t going to make it. At his uncle’s bedside, Tarune began sobbing. Hyperventilating. The nurses rushed to his side. They handed him tissues. Tarune had difficulty breathing, so they handed him an alcohol swab to calm him down. His uncle, who had a ventilator on, mumbled something incoherent, then grabbed a piece of paper and wrote three words on the surface: let him cry.
“It was a beautiful moment because he really taught me that I could cry, especially as an Asian man, it’s [considered] not okay to be vulnerable,” Tarune said. “I don’t necessarily think my music’s sad. I want it to be beautiful because all of it is a catharsis for me. For a lot of people, they know ‘let him cry’ was this thing from my uncle, but these songs are a mixture. Some of them are just love songs, but I think love is fused with grief.”
Off the new album, Tarune’s latest song “is this the end?” is tender, wistful, and melancholy. It conjures up the feeling of being alone, perhaps in an empty forest underneath the expansive night sky. The instrumentals are blue. The sound is gentle.
“I was thinking a lot about mortality…and I was getting in touch with that fear,” Tarune said. “is this the end?” is about presence–existing and being attuned to your feelings. The song was also inspired by his uncle. In the seventies, Tarune’s uncle used ketamine therapy, which is said to evoke spiritual epiphanies.
“Before he passed away, he always told me he wanted me to do it with him. So that I would lose my fear of dying,” Tarune said.
The components of Tarune’s music are his own creation, as he produces, engineers, and mixes his sounds from start to finish. His music includes subtle sounds from his personal life. In “Met a Girl,” Tarune included the background noise of a cafe in the West Village; he had a lengthy conversation about life with a girl there. In “Paris Syndrome,” he includes the sounds of a French beach. He described it as a bedroom version of a producer tag. While the ambient background sounds aren’t overtly audible, it contributes to a sense of atmosphere in Tarune’s music. They add a layer to Tarune’s artistry: he is inserting a memory into his music. The sounds aren’t sterile. To him, the preservation of imperfections is a reminder of the humanity behind music.
“That’s what I love so much about making music. It allows for unlimited emotional openness, and I have a lot of feelings that I’d like to share,” Tarune said. “I just want to tell the story of a feeling, and I want to do that through music.”
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