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Maria Chiara Argirò’s hypnotic new single “Blossom” was inspired by the beauty and perfection of nature and questions what it means to grow in this world – as a human or plant. Lyrically the song evolved into a fairytale scene. Maria tells, “A girl wakes up in the night, looks out of the window and sees someone she loves leaving, probably for good. She wants to call out and say ‘don't go’, but the words don't come out. Instead a little flower drops out of her mouth. The flower represents growing and moving on from something, or a deeper understanding of the situation. The flower comes out instead of the words that are holding you back.”
The upcoming LP, Forest City, is due out on May 6, 2022.
“I think she’s gonna blow your mind” BBC’s Maryanne Hobbs
"a clubby departure for Argirò, trading in clever chord changes for a hypnotic beat & swelling synth pads." FADER
“In a month all your cool friends will talk about Maria Chiara Argirò” Rolling Stone (IT)
“...a seemingly effortless blend of electronic elements with dance beats and a chocolate fudge swirl of jazz trumpet, this builder commands center stage. Play it loud for a weekend catharsis” KCRW
"drifts between club culture's left-field aspects and jazz improvisation" CLASH
"Bonsai" was also named Clash's song of the day.
"New song 'Bonsai' is - appropriately, given the title - a microcosm of her work, with the billowing house elements carrying a unique physicality. Heady, other-worldly stuff, 'Bonsai' grows organically, the lush horn elements augmented by the percussive rattle." - CLASH
"a clubby departure for Argirò, trading in clever chord changes for a hypnotic beat and swelling synth pads." - The FADER
On Forest City, Maria finds a glistening thread between these movements: where jazz meets Kelly Lee Owens, Jon Hopkins and Radiohead. It’s a concept record, about the “duality of nature and city”, where organic sounds and textures seem to flow above the urban sprawl.
Maria had finished writing the album before the first lockdown but the enforced isolation helped to give the music a sense of urgency, a longing to be immersed in the natural world and the buzz of the city at the same time. The songs always start as something she can play acoustically, that would work without the bells and whistles, and then she layers the atmosphere around them.
Though the album has dark undertones, it’s not all doom and gloom: in her earthy metropolis, a certain optimism glows through. “It’s about being conscious of the world we live in and how careful we need to be,” Maria explains. “At the end of the day, there is hope”.
Her new, warm and house-inflected single “Bonsai” came spontaneously. Maria reveals, “The main theme and melodies came out of an improvisation I had on my Yamaha CS reface over the first rhythmic synth idea. I remember trying many different sounds playing on my laptop, on Ableton and some VST, focussing on having a playful time rather than being too worried and conscious of the outcome. I wanted to create a playful dance floor track, but I also needed a drastic and big drop to happen at a certain point, like a wake-up call: the trumpet sounded like the best choice to get this “shouting” moment and drop. Like falling.”
Forest City was recorded and self-produced between her bedroom and her studio with the precious help of her longtime collaborators and electronic producers, In a Sleeping Mood and mixing engineer Alex Killpartrick. And, crucially, she is singing for the first time, too – her airy, otherworldly vocals on “Blossom” and “Clouds” especially resemble Emiliana Torrini or a singer in a smoky, late-night club, alone under the spotlight on the stage.
Opening track “Home” sets up the shadowy textural claustrophobia of the city, its melancholic piano evoking raindrops on crowded pavement; then the album evolves into a mesmeric journey spanning downbeat trip-hop, all skittering drums and warped trumpet (“Forest City”), dream-like, folkier songwriting (“Greenarp”, which was named after the arpeggios she created on her beloved Organelle synth), shoegazey alt-pop, punctured by poignant brass solos (“Blossom”) and beguiling jazztronica that wouldn’t sound out of place in a Jamie XX set (“Clouds”).
Forest City sees its release via Innovative Leisure on May 6th. To pre-order / pre-save the album, go here.
This month, Maria is wrapping up a UK tour with Emma-Jean Thackery - more dates to be announced.
Multi-instrumentalist & jazz trained pianist Maria Chiara Agirò (pronounced ma-REE-ah key-AH-rah r-gee-ROW) has weaved her way throughout UK and Italy’s jazz, classical & electronic worlds for over a decade. She emerges with her first full venture into electronic production with a new studio album due later this spring.
Maria has been quietly weaving her way around the UK jazz, classical and electronic worlds since she moved to London from Rome 11 years ago. A pianist from the age of nine and a key player in the capital’s multi-national jazz scene, she’s lent her skills to indie band These New Puritans, lush jazz troupe Kinkajous and, more recently, collaborations with Jamie Leeming – their 2020 album Flow was nominated for one of the albums of the year in the Jazz Revelations Awards and was the Guardian’s jazz album of the month – and beat-driven duo Moonfish.
Maria recorded and self-produced “Clouds” between her bedroom and studio with the precious help of her longtime collaborators and electronic producers, In a Sleeping Mood and mixing engineer Alex Killpartrick. And, crucially, she is singing for the first time, too – her airy, otherworldly vocals on “Clouds” resemble Emiliana Torrini or a singer in a smoky, late-night club, alone under the spotlight on the stage.
Maria explains that “Clouds” is “a pure observation of the world I pictured where the clouds, sky and dreamy movement of the synths and vocal samples meet with the earth/roots of the electronic beat/drums and where all the elements evolve and come back, like in a circular movement. In order to create this effect and this mood, I needed to mix the acoustic drums with the electronic beats, having the trumpet improvising over the odd time signature and creating a circled sound effect on the chords and harmony of the prophet.”
Already at the leading edge of the UK jazz scene, producer and multi-instrumentalist Ben Marc recently stepped into the spotlight with his lustrous and contemplative ‘Breathe Suite’ EP. Released in September and praised by the likes of NPR, The Wire and The Guardian, its sweeping strings, rippling piano and meditative vocals showed off Marc’s undeniable gift for composing and arranging. The EP and was nearly finished during lockdown when the death of George Floyd shook the world. As a result, Marc and vocalist Midnight Roba steered the release in a more contemplative direction, with the BLM ‘Breathe Suite B’ depicting struggle, panic and ultimately peace. New single ‘Way We Are’ offers a tantalising taster of what’s to come, and with an upcoming full-length album muted for release in spring, Marc has this to say on it:
"‘Way we are’ reflects on the way we live, the way we think and the way we grow. It’s the first track from my upcoming record and it came about while I was questioning what type of person or musician I am." Ben Marc
Marc, the alias of Neil Charles, has quite the musical pedigree. He grew up splitting his time between Birmingham and Carriacou in the Caribbean: at school in the English city, he started taking classical music lessons aged 10. After touring the world in school orchestras, Marc moved to London to take classical double bass at the prestigious Trinity College of Music, where Fela Kuti once studied, under the tutelage of double bassist Chi-chi Nwanoku. It wasn’t until a chance meeting in Brixton with Gary Crosby, linchpin of Tomorrow’s Warriors – the crucial London jazz educators that connect the UK new wave luminaries, from Nubya Garcia to Moses Boyd – that the possibility of jazz shone like a beacon. “He was Black and holding a double bass, so I went up to him on the street and tapped him on the shoulder to find out what he was doing,” says Marc. It was the start of a game-changing journey that would see him play first with smart jazz group Empirical and then led him to forming the free-jazz trio Zed-U, alongside Shabaka Hutchings (Sons of Kemet, The Comet is Coming) and drummer Tom Skinner. With Zed-U, Marc’s passion for electronic music began to bubble up. He and Hutchings would frequent London nightclubs together, soaking in the sounds of garage, broken beat and drum’n’bass at iconic former spots such as The End and Plastic People. He even took Hutchings to his first house and techno night, where DJs like Sven Vath and Ricardo Villolobos would man the decks – influences that led Marc to produce a house EP for the London-based label Atjazz. His work with other key figures has been building up, too: last year, he joined keysman Ashley Henry on the latter’s track ‘The Mighty’, which Marc wrote and produced.
In his new music, Ben Marc has unified these influences into a sublime whole. Now signed to LA’s Innovative Leisure, he’s found a home alongside similarly future-thinking artists like Badbadnotgood, Nosaj Thing, Rarelyalways and Jimmy Edgar. ‘Way We Are’ is a sign of things to come from an artist clearly at the top of his game.
Read more at Clash: https://www.clashmusic.com/news/ben-marcs-way-we-are-is-absorbing-return
On the new single, Meat Market, Iguana Death Cult explain "This angry little ditty about the death of romance is an absolute success during the live shows but we decided to keep it of the record because it felt a little to far away from the other songs."
"Frenetic, intense sonic assaults, they turn psych punk into astonishingly concise three-dimensional documents." - CLASH