“My love knows to go below ground.”
It is so very important that art is left unresolved. These days we find this discussion arises most frequently for visual media, an adage that plays out across irony-poisoned Letterboxd reviews for the likes of Twin Peaks, Andrei Rublev, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or Donnie Darko. One can argue about the kind of person that latches onto these works, but what’s undeniable is that personal momentum can be found and cultivated within ambiguity. The present record, Marathon, is such a piece for the ambient-acoustic community to dissect. Those of us that didn’t notice the buzz around Maria BC’s sophomore record Spike Field may instead have found through her contribution to I Saw The TV Glow’s original soundtrack, where “Taper” helped to communicate the vulnerability of its protagonist. Their contemporaries include Midwife, Skullcrusher, claire rousay, Grouper, and Ethel Cain – femme songwriters embracing otherworldly atmospheres and discomfort.
With their classically trained background, it would be so easy for Maria BC to release an album chock-full of no-holds-barred, emotionally charged singer-songwriter tracks. Moments like “Watcher” on Spike Field feel canonical to their body of work, and it must be tempting to plough that furrow over and over again. Instead, her new album Marathon traces an orbit around such pivotal moments, with revelation gracing us like infrequent shafts of light.
Opener “Marathon” takes us gently away from the acoustic dream dimension that Maria BC is best known for. Dominated by crude distortion, it’s presented without much layering except for little piano parts dancing differently in each ear. To match, the track’s own pacing plays out unexpectedly, ending as soon as its half-remembered story has been told (“That emblem, ‘M’, glowing in the rain… The neighbour’s son’s name in bleach”). Sonically akin to something from a record by The Microphones, it’s a sound no production engineer would ever choose, but it’s gently enthralling.
The rest of the record declines distortion and finds sonic variety in other ways. The aforementioned pianos emerge from the fuzz and lead the muted soundscape of “As the earth turns”. On this track and across the record, the guitar is ever present. One gets the sense that this is always the blueprint from which each song rises, something laid down since their debut record Hyaline. Curious electronics and broken clocks populate the three interludes “Port authority”, “June” and “Channels”, and other tracks borrow this weird percussion, whether it fits with the overall tapestry or not.
There’s much precedent for this – whilst the first half of Spike Field played it straight with its sound palette, side two was more adventurous, with moments like “Lacuna” being instrumentally focused and displaying a vast array of sounds. On Marathon, Maria BC’s motivation for this record was to focus on songwriting over production. Anyone who has dabbled in making their own music knows that these aspects often sit at cross purposes. Hang-ups on the minutiae of one sound can derail a whole day’s work. Thus, these raw and often unfinished sounds are deliberate. As many of these tracks end unexpectedly, or hold back from the more obvious strokes others might make, Maria BC builds an approach that creates cohesion from within the incoherent.
The lyrics of Marathon are so personal they are inscrutable, inviting the listener to fill in the record with their very own blanks. Most of the album exudes a dimly lit, open night atmosphere, with some touch of magic meaning where we can only hear what we can see. Maria BC’s voice is lonely and weary; they sing carrying all the erosion that their words imply. With an upbringing as a mezzo-soprano, we must see this sort of presentation as its own act of resistance. No doubts, they could be signing with enough gusto to light every candle in a mile with one breath, but that would not serve this story. These words are so personal they must be whispered as if the listener was just two pillows away.
The opener “Marathon” details a long distant but still raw memory captured at the titular filling station. Such liminal moments populate the record: “The Greyhound sputters into motion / my life, my time – all mine” on “Peacemaking”, leading to its own collection of reflections, no doubt processed behind red eyes. Later “Sabotage” inverts this, navigating its way from deep thoughts to a physical place by its end (“Stop time – shut the freights down / Stalled cars watch the clouds go by”). It’s as if one is waking from a melancholy that has lasted too long, but without the ability to push back on the stasis. This track is among Maria BC’s very best, returning to the heights of her most cherished vocally-driven tracks with Marathon’s nocturnal sound.
“Safety” is an unusual track which diverts into fairytale imagery, directly tackling themes that have been on Maria BC‘s mind: extractive energy systems and environmental destruction (“Dry summer, The boss counts the tender… Steel eden, The cops watch the children”). In terms of finding a through-running thread, “May This Rain” may be referencing “As the Earth Turns” (“A little rain? No problem” turns to “Family names struck through / may this rain end soon”) – but only maybe. Everything about Marathon is laced with coincidence and withheld perspective. This extends even to the closer, “Miami”, another piece which ponders a real physical space, the irony of finding peace on the most over-partied beach in the world. It gives no clear hint of being an ending, either sonically or lyrically – the listener must accept this unevenness.
This record will feel like a curious challenge even after several listens, even for fans of Maria BC’s present discography. Scattered production and uneven approaches to songwriting are deftly matched with irreverent lyrics and vocals. Marathon ultimately feels all the more human as a result, which makes the work of other songwriters feel safe and stilted. The tracks “Peacemaking”, “Sabotage” and “Night & day” deserve a life of their own, but mostly this record is here to be its own curio; a journey, not a destination.
8/10
Marathon releases through Sacred Bones Records on the 27th February and can be pre-ordered here.