Maria BC has lined up a new album, Marathon. The Oakland musician will release their Spike Field follow-up on February 27, via Sacred Bones. Watch F. Saber Sutphin’s video for the title track—a song of conflicted nostalgia for Marathon gas stations—below.
Maria BC says of the new song in a press release:
There was a Marathon gas station at the end of the street I lived on as a kid. Its big, glowing sign was a landmark for me—when I could see it from the window of my mom’s car, I knew we were about to be home. Its iconic ‘M’—on the rare occasion I encounter one these days—still brings up that old feeling, the familiarity of homecoming, and a twinge of nostalgia. There’s something perverse about this, I think. The oil company’s branding is, or at least was, exceptionally patriotic, what with its red, white and blue color scheme and idealized Midwestern imagery, all dusty roads, cowboys and wild horses that harken the brand’s slogan, ‘Fueling the American Spirit.’ I once heard someone refer to advertising as ‘satanic poetry’—I have to agree. That this logo, even with all the evil it connotes, can invoke nostalgia—can be a beacon—is very sinister to me.
They add, of the album, “I decided to spend less time on production and recording and more time on songwriting. The result, I think, is more thematically consistent, lyrically speaking, and more concise… I set out to make something more dynamic and varied.”
English (US) · 