Maria, British Columbia

Maria BC weaves together folk, shoegaze and ambient like no one else.

Fog, steam, mist / a yellowed photograph of a glacier by the sea / a black-and-white hilly landscape / a night-time scene with trees on fire (?) / and now: a figure in an oversized black leather jacket, sitting in a window, stepping into the room or climbing out into… a misty hilly landscape? – Maria BC’s album covers suggest that this is all about atmosphere. About gloom and depth. About experimental folk and ambient. With a leather jacket.

In mid-February, the US label Sacred Bones released the third studio album by Maria BC from Oakland, CA. Marathon is an album for the long haul. A dynamic exploration of perseverance: of carrying on, resisting, observing and surviving.

‘When I write songs, I sometimes imagine that the singing voice is a kind of spirit,’ says Maria BC. “Someone from above or below, calling out a warning to us: ‘You can’t carry on like this’.” Ultimately, Marathon tells a story of perseverance – not just of a single life, but of many lives unfolding across space and time on a vulnerable Earth.