Schnipper’s Slept On
- story THE FADER
Each Tuesday, FADER editor Matthew Schnipper highlights an underappreciated recent release he thinks we need to know about. This week it’s Mariee Sioux’s Faces in the Rocks. Listen to “Friendbones” below, buy the album and read Schnipper’s thoughts on the record after the jump.
Mariee Sioux looks like Frida Kahlo, unibrow and hair feathers. I don’t think her real name is Mariee Sioux either. It’s probably Mallory Smith. If I was a twinkly folk singer my name would be Miracle Smartfeather and I would dress like Isaac Newton. Send some friendboats, made from woodbones are her words. What does that mean? Miracle Smartfeather has a song too, tiny twigbees come hinder, nuzzle fuzzy nectars on woolen mantles.
Occasionally, Faces in the Rocks gets specifically dull. But non-specifically — less as individual songs and more as a lifestyle — it lulls, sounds like being carried on a hike as a baby in a homemade sling, all inaugural experiences through soft senses. There are a lot of leaves, a lot of confusing wind, a lot of tiny stones. Nature has a lot of individual origins, even if it first seems like a blast of crispy brown and sad greens. “Wild Eyes” is over nine minutes long; there is a lot of wood flute. I could take this the harsh way or I could let the song’s nooks emerge, awash me in the repetitive joys of nature. Or, to put it another way, I keep watching football these days. I do not have a particular team affiliation aside from a general bloodline-necessitated duty to root for any New York team. So I watch anything. Last night I watched Monday Night Football and it was really good until the Buccaneers clowned themselves. On Sunday the Giants were not great either, uncoagulated as a team. Eli Manning looked like a scared squirrel. Who expected that? Not me. I’m not affected by it, by the Carolina Panthers getting beastly, by Brett Favre’s emotions on having moved east. I just want to watch a game that is a weird mix of track and field, wrestling and chess. One of the Philadelphia Eagles leapfrogged over one of the Giants and blocked a field goal. I thought I was going to choke on my eggs. I clapped in my living room. Mariee Sioux has a song called “Bravitzlana Rubakavla.” I just like listening to her say the Vs, the Z and the K. I like the rest of it, too, but that specifically.
Related:
- Exclusive Audio: Mariee Sioux, “Love Song”
- Stylee Fridays: Schnipper Gets Fitted
- The FADER F2 Issue 4 Audio: The Angels of Light, Larkin Grimm, The Entrance Band, Quinn Walker, Mariee Sioux, Phosphorescent
- Freeload: F2 The New Folk Podcast
- The FADER F2 Issue 4: The New Folk The Entrance Band, Mariee Sioux, Michael Gira, Phosphorescent, Quinn Walker
- posted on Dec 9, 2008 in SLEPT ON
- tags folk, Mariee Sioux
