mari maurice aka more eaze returns to Ecstatic with a tenderly gorgeous solo side after her
standout claire rousay collaboration last year for the same label - a big recommendation if yr into
Elysia Crampton, Mica Levi, MBV, Vegyn, Organ Tapes, Grouper, Dntel, Nozomu Matsumoto, Rainy
Miller.
Nestling in the space between ambient, indie-/synth-, and what’s now termed hyper-pop, more
eaze specialises in lower case songcraft that effortlessly gets under the skin. Featuring notable
guest input by Spivak, Dialect, and Pam3, ‘The Joker’ is perhaps more eaze’s most significant
long player, forming a filigree distillation of soft-touch, emo-core pop styles wreathed in fractal
electronics and blessed by a gentle sensitivity that feels like micro-dosing with mates on a sunny
day.
’The Joker’ was inspired by more eaze’s experiences travelling extensively during 2021-22,
absorbing and transmuting time spent meeting new people, seeing new places, and watching
established relationships change. Like regular spar claire rousay, ‘The Joker’ finds micro-insights
crystallised to odd-pop imperfection, merging ohrwurm hooks with field recordings and traces
of electronica, R&B, reggaeton, and classic indie-rock chops to divine a personal truth that should
resonate with lovers of low key ambient as much as hi-key poptimism.
Through nine subtly effected snapshots of daily life, mari somehow encapsulates the feeling of
trying to endear yourself to someone new, the tactility of another’s touch, chuckling at misfired
jokes. Beginning with fractured toytronics and autotune vox in ‘yours’, melodies spill over from
the Dntel-like licks of ‘fall apart’, to the mutant shoegaze bliss of ‘vindictive’ (it properly sounds
like an autotuned version of MBV’s ‘to here knows when’), plus E+E-via-Palmistry reggaeton of
‘hablar contagion’, with Spivak lending featherlight vox to ‘a chat’, while ‘comedy’ dials up a sense of
outsider irony with a wry shrug.
Liverpool-via-Brooklyn’s Dialect helps seal the deal with the burbling touch of ‘eyeliner’, a fittingly
hypnagogic ending to a dreamlike album whose effect lingers like latent fractals of a therapeutic
psilocybin session.
