Comprehensive Norma Tanega 2LP archival set collects studio and demo recordings

Best known for the What We Do In The Shadows theme "You're Dead," Norma Tanega gets an overdue compilation and book. 

Here's the scoop...

The double vinyl archival collection of the late Norma Tanega’s music, I’m The Sky: Studio and Demo Recordings, 1964–1971 has just been released via Anthology Recordings. Surveying her two commercially released studio albums, an unreleased LP, and a trove of unheard demos, the collection can now be streamed or purchased here. Listen to the track “A Goodbye Song” (below) from her elusive 1971 sophomore album I Don’t Think it Will Hurt if You Smile.

I’m The Sky follows the Anthology Editions release of Tanega’s comprehensive visual biography, Try to Tell a Fish About Water (9"x10", trade paperback, 160 pages), detailing her career as a visual artist. The book is a compendium of her paintings, musings, and more, shared alongside reminiscences by some of her closest friends and collaborators of her winding journey through art, music, and community. You can get a copy of Norma's book right here. 

The first half of I’m The Sky… collects songs from Tanega’s two studio albums, 1966’s Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog (produced and arranged by Herb Bernstein) and I Don’t Think…, as well two tracks from an unreleased 1969 album, Snow Cycles, while the second half deep dives into the well of unreleased demos discovered in her Claremont, CA, home after she passed in 2019. The 27 unadorned recordings highlight the wit, poetry, intimacy and depth of feeling in her songs, which have continued to resonate with later generations of artists—including Yo La Tengo and They Might Be Giants, who have each covered her 1965 hit, “Walkin’ My Cat Named Dog.”

While perhaps best recognized for her own recordings, or for her multiple songs written or co-written for Dusty Springfield (who was also her partner for a number of years), or nowadays for “You’re Dead” (her song that soundtracks the opening credits of both the film and TV show What We Do in the Shadows), Tanega was also a wildly talented visual artist and a central pillar in the Claremont creative community. Try to Tell a Fish About Water offers an overview of her work and history as an artist, musician, teacher, and more through previously unseen photos, illustrations, journal entries, and other ephemera. In compiling images of Tanega’s art with reflections and remembrances from some of those who knew her best, the book draws a portrait of a beloved, distinctive creator celebrated not only for her extraordinary talent, but also for her contagious spirit, humour, generosity, and warmth.

Tanega, according to her friends, liked to say that she had three lives: music, art, and teaching. “It is typical of Norma that while other people have stages of their lives, Norma had three lives. She was just too big for one,” explains her friend and colleague Moana Vercoe in Try to Tell a Fish About Water. Perhaps now, through these releases that celebrate her art, music, and life, she will get her fourth.

Listen to "A Goodbye Song" and "You're Dead" below.