Big Sigh

イギリスのボーカリスト、シンガーソングライターとして活躍するMarika Hackmanの新作がChrysalis Recordsより登場。これまでで完成までに最も時間のかかった作品で、彼女のこれまでの活動を集約させたものと言えるでしょう。しっとりとした落ち着いたボーカルに印象的なピアノや壮大なアレンジが加わった素晴らしい作品。共同プロデューサーとしてFrank Ocean, Red Hot Chilli Peppersなどを手掛けたSam Petts DavisとCharlie Andrewが参加。

Now over a decade into her career, Marika Hackman can be relied on to surprise from album to album, having moved from intimate nu-folk to grungier indie rock to something poppier with keyboards and drum machines in play on 2019s Any Human Friend. Unfortunately for Hackman and most everyone else, the COVID-19 pandemic took hold just a few months after the release of that album, closing venues and making collaboration more challenging. For Hackman, this first-time break from continuous album cycles was accompanied by a bout of writers block, so she set about recording an intimate covers album (Covers), which appeared on Sub Pop in late 2020. Despite serious concerns to the contrary, the songwriting gates opened for her the following year, and the resulting Big Sigh marks her Chrysalis Records debut. It also reflects yet another shift in sound, with its quietly intense indie rock accentuated by horns and strings. Hackman played virtually everything else herself on the album, which she co-produced with longtime collaborator Charlie Andrew (Alt-J, Wolf Alice) and Sam Petts-Davies (Thom Yorke, Warpaint). Far from a celebratory record, however, Big Sigh finds her diving deep into her innermost thoughts and resentments in the aftermath of a toxic relationship. Family is not off limits on "Vitamins," a lethargic, half-murmured lament with humming synths and clanking metal about unhelpful advice, a critical mother, and unwanted encouragement ("Im not special and youre all insane"). Most of the songs, though, explore the relationship and its various emotional scars, as illustrated by sometimes graphically poetic descriptions and metaphor, including references to blood, bones, afterbirth, plucked wings, and a heart thats "a hard brown stone, like an embryo." Elsewhere, "Slime" is a dark, driving indie rocker about sex, while the overthinking "No Caffeine" enumerates all the things to try to do and not do to foster healing ("Make a herbal tea/Dont throw up"). Depressed, self-loathing, bitter, and candid throughout, Big Sigh closes on an unexpected spare acoustic track, the resigned "The Yellow Mile," which restates the warped sentiment of opening prelude "The Ground": "I was happy for a while." Terrible circumstances aside, maybe Hackman just needed a little break before delivering her most compelling album to date. ~ Marcy Donelson