more eaze - lacuna and parlor (Mondoj, 2024)
Multi-instrumentalist Mari Maurice, better known as more eaze, likes to give her songs time to grow. Expansive chords, lingering string touches at a heavenly slow tempo that gently pulls you along. Released on the Polish label Mondoj, ‘lacuna and parlour’ takes you on a journey in its first 30 minutes - from ‘waltz (in memoriam old ways of living)’ to ‘blanking intervals’ to ‘leap year compersion’. The opening track acts as a prelude to two long, sprawling sonic ballads. ‘Waltz (in memoriam old ways of living)’ is pure and intense - an emotional bomb that may or may not explode, depending on what you allow yourself to feel. It immediately sets the tone for the rest of the album, with more eaze revealing an intimacy that slowly unfolds before the listener. On ‘blanking intervals’, with its repetitive guitar chords and melancholy, auto-tuned vocals, she unveils her full sonic palette, pouring chaos and distortion over the track’s apparent smoothness. A delightful contrariness that recurs regularly in more of eaze’s work. ‘Materials for Memory’ - where strings overlap in overdubs and scattered chatter seeps into the track - feels like a chamber recital, with sparse piano chords sprinkled in to leave you speechless. In fact, the whole album steals your words. The music takes hold of you, reaching a deep, hypnotic, Americana-inspired ambient. Then the string monologue on ‘a(nother) cadence’ abruptly pulls you out of this trance, winking at a Vivaldi concerto. The closing track, ‘adagio for pedal steel ensemble and overdubbed room’, is exactly what its title suggests: a slow melody played on pedal steel, with sound collages swirling around it. What an album. The variety of sounds, the way instrumentation and genres merge, and the sheer contemporary inventiveness - it all oozes creativity. With ‘lacuna and parlour’, more eaze has added an immensely strong album to her discography.
Released on Mondoj,