Maria BC : Marathon
Expansive sound is a constant in Maria BC’s growing discography. The Oakland singer/songwriter’s neoclassical style is awe-inspiring: Guitar noodling is engulfed by elongated, haunting synths, as Maria BC places their gauzy mezzo-soprano upfront. The result is delicately devastating suites of unfolding ambience: One moment they’re sparse and hollow, but then they’re dense and brooding. This fluctuating shape is the product of a truly shrewd sound collagist, but on this new entry, Marathon, Maria BC has opted for a different kind of unraveling.
Their previous albums, 2022’s Hyaline and 2023’s Spike Field, play as continuous, amorphous single works—both unhurried treks inviting lived-in acoustics, broken electronics, and nature recordings to join along the way. Spike Field in particular, its intense imagery making it even more profound than its predecessor: A Google image search of the album title leads to illustrations of irregularly sized spikes protruding from the ground, foreboding a destructive cataclysm. Perhaps that trek was more anxious and cautious. In contrast, Marathon is Maria BC’s concerted effort to write individual songs rather than write fragments that constitute a narrative arc. Here, songcraft is ahead of production, but neither is diminished. The songs are shortened, but Maria BC showcases their full range from this newfound immediacy.
For instance, the spectacularly gushing title opener is deceiving. Its soaring distortion recalls the first notes of My Bloody Valentine’s m b v, or the exhaling, scratchy bellowed cello across Arthur Russell’s World of Echo on moments like “Being It.” Where Russell exerts his baritone to push through the aural suffocation, Maria BC does similarly with their pacifying, airy voice. Marathon never reaches these sinister heights again, but this is, again, by design: Every element is presented in great detail. The preceding tracks are nuanced laments on connection, intimacy, and preservation—each Marathon’s core concepts. As usual, guitar primarily directs the melody, but a warm piano subtly accompanies it—of this lot, “Rare” is a scintillating work of stellar sound design, with shots of digital noise pacing in and out of earshot over a twitching, meditative groove.
The times when Maria BC achieves true newness are in Marathon’s shortest songs, which lean furthest into progressive electronic territory. “Port authority” features shapeshifting, garbled aquatic samples accompanying its curling, metallic percussion, which dramatically deviates from the preceding somber acoustics. The penultimate “Channels” effervesces with hope from its rising synth and chipper vocal chops, until it settles back down to melancholy on the marching closer “Miami.”
Woven into Marathon is not only its urgency, but a deeper sense of dread from pushing too far. For Maria BC, the album title refers to a childhood gas station branded with a bright “M,” which embodies America’s drive to fiercely compete, but enact on our planet’s destruction due to fossil fuel capitalism. It’s this supplementary significance that situates Marathon as more than a set of songs—in this view, Marathon morphs differently but similarly to Maria BC’s previous albums, indeed conveying a vital narrative. Its brevity may suggest sprinting as a coping mechanism, dishonoring the title, but it’s not that at all. It’s the prolonged time spent with these ruminations that offers the marathon worth embarking upon.
Label: Sacred Bones
Year: 2026
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Maria BC : Marathon
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