We suspect we missed posting Tariq's Big Hit album because we've been hoping to stumble across a copy on cassette, rather than relying on our CD. Well, there's no reason to delay this - especially since he [url=https://tariqmusiq.bandcamp.com/album/scroll-before-you-sleep]just released a new EP in January of 2025[/url]. Since this one is on streaming services, we'll direct you to your favourite source... oh, and for more background, here's a big, flowery Muretich piece that ran in the Herald when The Basement Songs came out. We should not that there was an equally big article on Hanson right below it. [img width=662.5px]//7ca49eb9f67ba1319ef136f9d52cd8b8.cdn.bubble.io/f1738443573524x606750744324261900/richtext_content.jpeg[/img] TARIQ [b]Words and music flow freely from the basement of musician's soul[/b] JAMES MURETICH There is always the feeling about Tariq of a river that's finally burst free of its dam and rushing toward the ocean it knows It belongs to. It was there in his head as a young kid, growing up in a strict Muslim family in Quebec, listening to songs on the transistor radio buried beneath his pillow. And it is there now in the words and music of his songs, songs that have given a vibrant voice to all the feelings and ideas that rage within the quiet exterior of the man who has called Calgary his home for two years. It is that internal river that allowed Tariq to quickly make his mark on the Calgary music scene and which has led to his debut disc on EMI Music Canada, The Basement Songs, which is being released this Tuesday. "I know there are times where I feel overly analytical or overly sensitive because of the way I was brought up and having to fight that as a kid," says Tariq over lunch. "I had to find this kind of isolated sanctuary and that up here," he says, pointing to his head. "It was the only place I could be happy." Even though he prayed to be "a famous singer" as a youth, it is really only in the last four years that the music has poured forth from his head and his heart. Tariq is backed by a rockin' band on his debut disc, recorded in Calgary, and yet his tunes never shed the nakedness of their humble beginnings as basement songs. There's the feel of his folk beginnings and the many musical roads he's travelled since. And as infectious as the melodies are, his ultimate strength is his lyrics. He can make you ache on a song such as Georgia, make you smile on the wry Not Just a Waiter or capture the chaotic swirl of society on his first single-video Chevrolet Way. Yet the 29-year-old does so without ever mounting a soapbox. "I had this double pull when I was growing up. I felt square and yet I've felt like I couldn't be a rebel because I still had this ghost of my dad telling me that was wrong," says Tariq, referring to his strict upbringing. "It's something that affects you forever. I don't know, though. Maybe we all feel like that. I think everybody feels like an outsider at some point. "Not being the famous guy in high school is sometimes the better thing. You come out with more of an understanding of everyone, a lot more humble." The strange thing is on the way to where and who he is now, the comparative literature grad, the kid with the different colored skin who wasn't allowed to go out and play with others, the guy whose passion for music "caught up to him almost unawares, has become a singer/songwriter whose tunes touch all those who have lived in the basement at one time or another. "When I'm peopled out, when I've had enough/ when life gets hard 'cause life gets rough/ I'll be down in the basement/ for peace and quiet," he sings on the song Basement from his upcoming disc. "I like it down here in the basement/ I've got no more fears in the downtown. basement/ I spent 25 years in the basement/ down here." We've all been there. And we all have to leave, at one point or another, to face the world. Like Tariq. Like his songs. From the basement, with a hard-earned love.
