Marathon

With their first two albums, classically trained mezzo-soprano Maria BC established a shadowy, atmospheric body of work that incorporated things like field recordings, samples, an out-of-tune piano, and a church organ in addition to voice, ambient electric guitar, and electronics, among other hushed components. For their third album, Marathon, they made the conscious decision to spend more time on songwriting and less on recording and production. The results sound similarly intimate and melancholy but feature a more immediate sound and flaws-and-all performance style that bring the listener into the recording space. At the same time, songs with titles like "Miami," "June," and "As the earth turns" invite the suggestion of other times and places. The album opens with a surprisingly shoegaze-like title track that adds various gentle, well-spaced acoustic plucks to a sustained, harmonically shifting, low-range wall of buzzy noise that almost submerges its delicate vocals. The more spacious "As the earth turns" turns down the volume without bringing up the lights, as its piano and circular, percussion-fortified guitar pattern underscore weary lyrics concerned with the drudgery of modern-day survival ("Working as the earth burns/Working as the earth turns"). The mood does brighten slightly on tracks like the more melodic "Safety" and, with its playful percussion, "Rare," as well as on brief instrumental interludes like the marching and mechanical "Port authority" and the racing "Channels." While Maria BCs songs can float away into the clouded ether at times (or sink into the sea), Marathons more tactile sounds keep it loosely tethered to human interaction. ~ Marcy Donelson