FEATURE: Spotlight: Maple Glider — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Maple Glider

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ONE thing I love about…

Maple Glider (Tori Zietsch) is that her two studio albums feature beautiful covers where she is set in nature. Peaceful and playful, her new album, I Get Into Trouble, follows 2021’s To Enjoy Is the Only Thing. Released yesterday, you can grab a copy here. I Get Into Trouble already ranks alongside the best albums of this year. Receiving a collection of great reviews already, I will be interested to see if Glider tours the album over here in the U.K. She does have some dates in her native Australia and then the U.S. Signed to Partisan Records, the Melbourne-born artist was raised in a religious household in Lismore, New South Wales. She moved to Melbourne to be feel more comfortable and ensconced in the music community. She does discuss her religious upbringing and environment on her latest album. Before I get to some recent interviews and a couple of reviews for I Get Into Trouble, here is some background regarding the wonderful Maple Glider:

“For Tori Zietsch, who records emotionally direct and woozily romantic songs under the moniker Maple Glider, music has been an escape from a series of oppressive institutions: religion, enervating relationships, her own brain. Zietsch’s music has formed new pathways both literal and metaphorical; physical and neural, that have allowed her to step outside herself, and shake you—yes, you, the listener—by the hand.

I Get Into Trouble is a thematic expansion of her debut, going into greater and clearer detail, as she delves back into her Christian childhood while deconstructing her relationship to her body and her sexuality, alongside concepts of consent and shame. “Dinah,” a deceptively whimsical ditty, is the album’s entry-point to these themes, and it’s as infectious as an earworm wriggling through Eve’s apple. “I’ve been in the church making sure no one’s looking up my skirt,” she sings, on one of the poppiest songs she’s ever recorded”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Bridgette Winten

I am going to bring in a few interviews. The first, from 15 Questions is Glider, as you can guess, answering fifteen questions. I have chosen a few which are relevant regarding I Get Into Trouble and the creative process. If you have not heard of Maple Glider yet, make sure that you rectify this. She is a very special artist who will go a long way:

“Name: Tori Zietsch aka Maple Glider
Nationality: Australian
Occupation: Singer, songwriter
Current release: Maple Glider's new album I Get Into Trouble is out October 13th 2023 via Partisan.

If you enjoyed this Maple Glider interview and would like to stay up to date with her music, visit her official homepage. She is also on Instagram, Facebook, and Soundcloud.

Where does the impulse to create something come from for you? What role do often-quoted sources of inspiration like dreams, other forms of art, personal relationships, politics etc play?

All of my songs are inspired by personal relationships and personal experience. My song ‘Dinah’ taken from my new album I Get Into Trouble was inspired by a children’s version of a Bible story that I was read as a kid where a woman named Dinah is sexually assaulted, and then her brother murder’s her attacker
The story states that Dinah is to blame because she was associating with people who don’t believe in the same God that she does. The story also states that the only reason the assault is wrong is because her and her attacker are not married.

When I re-read the story as an adult I was horrified. It inspired me to write a lot of songs, it probably also fuelled me to write ‘Don’t Kiss Me’, which is also on my new record.

For you to get started, do there need to be concrete ideas – or what some have called a 'visualisation' of the finished work? What does the balance between planning and chance look like for you?

It’s all chance, baby. I have to sit down and play. I don’t spend too much time trying to finish anything before I’ve even started, I prefer to drag it out from start to end!

I usually don’t know what’s going to come, so I just arrive and begin. I guess in a sense, once I know what I’m writing about, I feel like the direction is a lot clearer.

So I guess my ‘visualisation’ of the finished work is more often thematic than sonic.

Do you have certain rituals to get you into the right mindset for creating? What role do certain foods or stimulants like coffee, lighting, scents, exercise or reading poetry play?

I love the ritual of having coffee so I’ll often make a coffee, have plenty of water and make myself comfortable. Most of the time I write it’s on my bed, on the floor, or outside.

I wrote most of ‘You At The Top Of The Driveway’ and ‘Baby You’re Gonna Be A Daddy’ in a backyard under a mulberry tree that reminded me of a mulberry tree we had on my street when I was a kid.

If I feel stuck, I usually make progress after I’ve had a walk or sat outside for a moment.

What do you start with? How difficult is that first line of text, the first note?

It’s different every time. Sometimes it’s the opening line and sometimes it’s a chorus or just something that pieces the song together. The first idea is usually something I get when I’m doing something else, and I make a point of stopping to record a voice memo.

I actually get a lot of inspiration when I’m in the studio recording other songs, or driving, or camping. I always want the first line to be strong though.

Sometimes it’s nice to tap into a sense. My song ‘Swimming’ starts with me sitting and watching surfers at Birling Gap at Seven Sisters near Brighton in the UK.

When do the lyrics enter the picture? Where do they come from? Do lyrics need to grow together with the music or can they emerge from a place of their own?

Lyrics are a big part of what makes my music what it is so they are usually one of the first elements that come into view, though very rarely they arrive without a melody.

I’ll often get a lyric locked into a melody immediately, and then I build around it and make changes if it feels right to as I’m moving through the song. The melody and the lyrics kind of feed each other.

To quote a question by the great Bruce Duffie: When you come up with a musical idea, have you created the idea or have you discovered the idea?

I’m not really sure whether I can really create ideas? But I can find them if I’m looking. I guess by looking I mean by writing as a practice.

I believe all songwriters are just searching really”.

I am going to come to a really deep and interesting interview from Headliner Magazine. Maple Glider discussed her childhood. She also revealed why I Get Into Trouble feels like her true debut. Something she is very proud about. It is not to say To Enjoy Is the Only Thing is a lesser work or one she is not happy with. It is most definitely worth checking out:

“On October 13, Melbourne-based artist Tori Zietsch, better known as Maple Glider, releases her second album I Get Into Trouble. Here she tells Headliner about escaping an oppressive childhood to pursue a career in music, and why her latest outing feels like a new beginning…

There’s a beguiling quality to Tori Zietsch’s music that is immediately detectable in conversation with the artist herself. Her 2021 debut To Enjoy Is The Only Thing and new album I Get Into Trouble are each possessed of intimate vignettes that explore themes of sexuality, shame, and a damaged childhood. Over gently plucked acoustic guitar, her delicate yet deceptively powerful voice channels personal experiences into songs that feel simultaneously fragile and cast in stone. Both the weight of the stories she tells and the strength she exerts to carry them are palpable.

Brought up in a deeply religious community in Naarm, Melbourne, a career in music isn’t something the young Zietsch could ever have predicted for herself. Indeed, many years after escaping the confines of her upbringing, it wasn’t until the release of her debut that she fully understood the path she was on.

“My first album was written mostly in Brighton in the UK when I was living there, and it was during a break in music,” she says, explaining her origins as a solo artist. She’s joining us from Granada, Spain, where she is taking a short break before playing a handful of European shows ahead the album’s release. Her tone is suitably bright and relaxed. “I’d just come out of a collaborative project and wasn’t really sure if I wanted to continue pursuing a career in music. But making that debut was the first time I’d ever really acknowledged I was pursuing a career in music [laughs]. I was just sort of doing it for ages without realising!

“I wanted a bit of space to figure out if it was really what I wanted to do, and I just wrote a heap of music and got obsessed with songwriting again. And I ended up accidentally recording an entire album when I planned just to go in [the studio] for a few songs. That was the beginning of Maple Glider. The recording was in 2020 and the release was 2021. Then in November 2021 we were coming out of our seventh lockdown in Melbourne, and I entered into the recording of the second album, which was a whole heap of songs that had just followed the first album. So, this album covers quite a long period of time.”

While the subjects and experiences that informed her debut flow seamlessly into I Get Into Trouble, the manner in which Zietsch approached them this time around was quite different. Evidently, the release of To Enjoy Is The Only Thing brought with it the courage to open up further through her music.

“A lot of the songs on this new album are shadows of songs that existed on the first one,” she says. “On the first album I was very conscious of what I was recording and I was a lot more nervous about the content I was sharing. A couple of songs on this album were already written at that time, but I was in no space to record and share those songs yet. It seemed too hard, and I felt too vulnerable. So unintentionally I came to a place where I felt more confident and able to be more vulnerable and to share things that felt more difficult for me prior to releasing my own music.”

There was, however, a counterpoint to that new sense of confidence Zietsch felt when recording the songs that would make up I Get Into Trouble. Despite feeling freer to depict certain aspects of her life that she had previously felt unable to share with the world, Zietsch was also feeling the pressure of releasing a solo record more acutely. As she describes it, her debut never really felt like a ‘proper’ album.

PHOTO CREDIT: Bridgette Winten

“It was actually so much harder to make this album,” she reflects. “It was really difficult. With the first album I was just doing it because it was something I really wanted to do, but had no real awareness of what could potentially happen. I was recording it independently and was just so grateful to have the experience of recording and sharing my own music. But this time it was more like, oh my god, I’m recording an album’!

As she prepares to go out on tour in support of I Get Into Trouble, Zietsch finds herself in the unusual position of releasing her second album in the mindset of an artist about to unveil their first. It’s the first time she’s approached the recording, release, and subsequent tour of a record outside of lockdown restrictions. And given that her debut happened, as she puts it, almost by accident, this time there’s a drive and intent that was likely lacking to some degree before.

“In a lot of ways this does feel like my actual debut, because the feelings were so different,” she says. “I experienced it differently, and because the first album came out during lockdowns it took ages to perform the songs live. I was very apprehensive to tour internationally. Now, in many ways, it feels like a new beginning. I’m already in the releasing process and feeling fired up to record again. I remember this happened last time. After finishing the campaign for the first record I was ready to go again straight away. And I want to do that now. I feel like it’ll be different all over again”.

There are two more interviews that I want to approach before I come to the reviews. In an interview published yesterday, JUNKEE. discovered more about a wonderful artist and her latest album. I do think that Maple Glider is someone that should be on everyone’s playlist. I Get Into Trouble will be in the best albums of 2023 albums come December:

“One of the songs Tori felt the most anxiety in the lead-up to releasing was ‘Dinah’, a deceptively buoyant and poppy cut that invokes the story of its titular Bible figure — in which a woman is sexually assaulted, then victim-blamed because she ventured out to spend time with “non-believers” — to draw parallels with Tori’s own experience. “The same thing happened to me when I was only 17/Do you think I got what I deserved?” she sings. “I’ve been in the church making sure no one’s looking up my skirt/But I do not feel safe here.”

It’s Tori’s most direct song as Maple Glider yet, searing and incisive and cathartic. “It was explicit because it had to be explicit, for myself,” she says. “I just needed to say some of those things out loud, and I just needed to sing them, in order to acknowledge them.”

‘Dinah’, along with ‘Don’t Kiss Me’ — a slow-burning salvo against the predatory objectification of girls by men — sizzle with anger, harnessed here as a propulsive energy. “Anger was the reason those songs were made,” Tori explains. “I was so angry. I think I had been internally angry for a while. There was this period of just complete disassociation with my upbringing. Then there was awareness, slight acceptance, and then came the frustration and the anger.

“It was just suppressed feeling, sitting somewhere trapped inside my body, and coming out in other ways. [Those songs were] a good way to channel the anger and redistribute it, and let it all flow through my body in a different way. A good kind of sensation of energy everywhere. ”Playing the songs now feels like a “boost of energy”, she says, a release.

“That’s been a nice shift, to take that very concentrated and directed anger and push it into other places, so it doesn’t feel quite like that anymore.”

As severely as those songs burn with righteous fury, there are many moments on the album that ache with stark loneliness. Few artists capture the feeling of isolation like Maple Glider, and I Get Into Trouble is full of songs that — like the best songs about loneliness do — offer a portal to connection, a balm for others who might feel the same way”.

I will now include an interview from Get In Her Ears. Among other things, Maple Glider discussed how it is a little harder touring as an Australian artist. Quite cut off from the rest of the world, it can be a challenge. Even so, there are loads of people around the world who are very keen to see her come their way. Go and get a copy of I Get Into Trouble if you can. It is well worth it:

“How would you say the album as a whole differs from your 2021 debut, To Enjoy Is The Only Thing?

I think it goes a bit deeper. It’s probably a bit less nice in some ways, and at times I think it could be more difficult to digest – there are definitely some uneasy themes and hard topics. At the same time, I think this new level of depth has been really important for me personally in the journey of making this album; I’ve felt within myself a release of a lot of tension and pain. They are also themes that are really relatable for a lot of people, which is quite sad, but also in many ways it has been a privilege to be able to see and acknowledge others through this honest and sometimes painful lens, and to feel seen and validated in return.

Having lived and performed live in both Australia and the UK, how would you compare the music scenes in both these places?

I guess for me they felt somewhat similar – there’s a lot of great music coming out of both places. It feels like there are a lot more barriers for Australian artists in terms of touring, just because we are geographically so far away, and as a result it feels like a really big deal to tour internationally. When I lived in the UK, so many of my favourite artists were touring, I went to so many amazing shows. There are so many incredible First Nations musicians in Australia that really deserve all of the platforms, opportunities and funding – nothing can compensate for what has been stolen from them. In Australia there is so much work to be done in terms of colonisers taking accountability for the atrocities we have committed and continue to perpetuate, and not that I can speak for any First Nations person, but it’s been made clear that real action needs to be taken, including treaty, land back and justice for all the lives that have been taken. I think only when we liste to First Nations people and actually take action instead of pretending that nothing is wrong will the music industry and everything else have the opportunity to flourish.

And has there been a particular gig that you’ve planned, in any country, that stands out as a highlight for you over the years?

I recently played a solo show in Paris that blew my mind. It’s the first time I’ve had to really focus on my singing because there were people in the crowd singing along to the lyrics so loudly that I could have easily confused their voices for my own – haha. It was just so weird to go to the other side of the world and meet people who knew my music so intimately.

When out on tour, are there any particular essentials that you like to take with you to keep you going when away from home?

I find an eye mask is good for getting a nice sleep when I’m sleeping in different spaces all the time. In my little backpack I’ll always take a water bottle and a keep cup, a good book and a little diary and pen. Stop Everything is a good podcast to download for the plane, and Pukka Relax tea is a yum blend of marshmallow root, chamomile and fennel that is very soothing for the throat and good to have before a show.

How do you feel the industry is for new artists at the moment? And do you feel much has changed over the last few years in its treatment of female/gender non-conforming and queer artists?

I think it’s really challenging for new artists at the moment. Everything is very expensive, and I think it can be really difficult to access a music career, even just based on the fact that it takes so much work to even be able to record music, whether that be accessing gear or producers/engineers. I’ve had the privilege of being signed to record labels, so I’ve had access to funds to be able to have the opportunity to create albums, but this is not true for a lot of incredibly talented and hard working artists. I certainly don’t do music full time. I also work two other jobs, and it can be really difficult trying to work out how to take time off to tour and record and make it all fit together. I definitely can’t speak for gender non-conforming and queer artists, but as a white cis-female artist I’ve noticed that there are a lot more spaces for my music now than there were when I was growing up. I remember most line-ups when I was growing up in Australia were all cis male indie-rock bands, and I specifically remember being told by a music manager around that time that they didn’t like female musicians, but for a woman my voice actually wasn’t so annoying. A lot of the time female artists were pitted up against each other by the industry as though they had to be in competition; it was so easy to feel small and devalued. Though there are still some festivals/people in Australia that adhere to these expired standards, there is so much more open conversation about it now. Abusive men in the industry are being exposed. Artists like Georgia Maq, Jaguar Jonze and Jen Cloher have really inspired me with their work in the music industry and how much they have contributed to change. I think the sheer fact that so many gender non-conforming and queer people are still subjected to so much violence and abuse in day to day life indicates that these experiences are also reflected in the music industry. If you are constantly fighting for your right to exist, I can only imagine how difficult it must be to muster the energy to persist in the music industry, one that can be extremely volatile and challenging even without added layers of prejudice and discrimination. And, though there are so many iconic queer and gender non-conforming artists that are rightfully celebrated and have incredible careers, there should be no doubt that these artists still have to work so much harder than cis white hetero artists just to experience the same level of recognition and reward”.

I will finish with some reviews. Most have given an effusive thumbs-up to the phenomenal I Get Into Trouble. This is what The Guardian said when they sat down with an album that is guaranteed to immerse and move every listener. It is music of the highest order from an artist with a very long career ahead of her:

“Violation and survival have become common themes in art by women over the last few years. By speaking truth to power and digging into personal, painful memories, an image emerges of what it means to exist in the world as a woman.

What about when patriarchy is not only in the physical world, but also the spiritual? It’s a question that the Melbourne-based singer-songwriter Tori Zietsch, who records as Maple Glider, tackles with her second album. Like Julia Jacklin’s excellent 2022 album Pre Pleasure, it explores the impact of a religious upbringing – and the accompanying surveillance, implied or actual – on a woman’s sexuality and sense of self. It is a logical successor to Zietsch’s stunning folksy debut, 2021’s To Enjoy Is the Only Thing, which tracked the seismic shifts of leaving both a religion and a relationship.

The single Dinah is this record’s centrepiece: its colourful music video and joyful, upbeat pop sound belies its devastating content. Based on the Bible story of a young woman who is raped and then blamed for it, Zietsch’s song unpacks the lifelong impact of hearing that tale as a child, and its effects on her own trauma. It’s a pointed finger at the victim-blaming tendencies that breed a culture of silence, and the lyrics slice like a knife: “The same thing happened to me when I was only 17 / Do you think I got what I deserved?”

Don’t Kiss Me, too, is a song about consent and agency – a moving staple of Maple Glider’s live shows prior to its official release here. “Sometimes my own body doesn’t feel like my body,” Zietsch sings over slow, sumptuous backing. It’s both shattering and enraging.

But among the hurt, there is joy to be found on this record too. On the back-to-back tracks You at the Top of the Driveway and You’re Gonna Be a Daddy, Zietsch reflects on watching her brother become a father. In true millennial fashion, she sings, “I really want to be the cool aunty like I am to my best friend’s dog.” There are hints of healing in these gentle songs.

Musically, the record picks up on where Zietsch’s first album left off on tracks such as Do You, which drifts atop a fingerpicked guitar refrain, and the piano-dotted Two Years. Elsewhere, on the haunting FOMO, Zietsch channels the ethereality of artists such as Marissa Nadler and Emiliana Torrini, showing off her higher register in a tale of very contemporary existential dread. “My bank account’s not healthy and neither is my sex life,” she sings – mood.

As an artist, Zietsch understands the impact of silence – the way negative space in songs can allow meaning to expand. On Surprises, she utilises silence to great effect, incorporating pauses and breaths to fully harness the quiet power of her vocals. Her voice is as beautiful unadorned as it is when drenched in rich harmony, whether doubled with her own vocals or accompanied by others – as on the simple and crushingly lovely For You and All the Songs We Loved.

I Get Into Trouble is a generous and deeply emotional record that embodies what Zietsch does so well: offering the listener a window into her most vulnerable thoughts, while also holding a mirror to the social structures that have led her there. Through this album, Zietsch bears witness to both herself and the world”.

Let’s end with The Line of Best Fit and their assessment of I Get Into Trouble. Awarding it 8 out of 10, they were very keen to show love the stunning Maple Glider and an album that you will not forget in a hurry! I am fairly new to her work, though I am not resolved to stick with her and see how her career progresses:

“With her follow-up, I Get Into Trouble, the Australian tunesmith continues to revel in lush hooks, evocative textures, and sensual vocals. Additionally, Zietsch’s new songs address complex subjects such as abuse, religion, and relational ambivalence, never collapsing into easy truisms or comfortable stereotypes. The result is a sophomore release that is compelling from start to finish.

“Dinah” offers an anti-Rockwellian take on church life, including the story of a friend who was raped (“she said no but he did not listen”). Zietsch goes on to declare, “the same thing happened to me”. The track is a milestone for Zietsch, exemplifying how her melodic sense has deepened, how her vignettes are more fleshed-out and accessible. Also, Zietsch delivers her wry social critique via a buoyant melody that Karen Carpenter would envy. The creepiness of the tale, contrasted with a bubblegum-ish tune, is brought into stark relief.

“Two Years” is one of Zietsch’s more sultry vocal takes. The singer attempts to leave a relationship after a year but is talked into staying (“I tried to leave and you said / baby please let’s sink into this new thing”). The same thing happens at the two-year mark. Zietsch’s dreamy melody again aptly contrasts with her portrait of a person who is unable to marshal her energies, exit a relationship, and claim the life she wants. The song stands as a startling yet pop-inflected commentary on “settling”.

As with many of the tracks on I Get Into Trouble, “Don’t Kiss Me” lends itself to various interpretations. Zietsch’s narrative may address child abuse but may, on the other hand, more generally convey how PTSD can play a role in any romance. While Zietsch’s debut brimmed with intriguing images and insights, she rarely struck this level of refinement – capturing how desire and aversion can coexist, making for a psychologically (and sexually) complicated situation. Replete with a chorus that references dissociation vis a vis an earworm melody (“Sometimes my own body / doesn’t feel like my own body”), “Don’t Kiss Me” is one of 2023’s more riveting tracks.

On “You’re Gonna Be a Daddy”, Zietsch congratulates a friend or ex-lover on entering into fatherhood while questioning her own trajectory (“Lately I’ve had this worried feeling / like time is gaining meaning without you in my life”). The melody is laidback and lowkey yet enticing, supported by steamy back-up vocals. “I just want to get to know you”, Zietsch sings, though one has the feeling that this probably won’t happen. “Do You” similarly portrays a relationship that gravitates toward estrangement, Zietsch’s voice soaring above a foundation of light percussion and understated synths.

Zietsch taps into a Hollywood theme-song vibe on closer “Scream”, still exuding an outsider energy. When she reflects, “While everybody else is sleeping in their beds / I’m speaking to myself to get the words out of my head”, Midwife’s moribund diarism comes to mind. Zietsch, however, is less direct, more oblique, poetic. In terms of production, Weyes Blood’s recent mixes are a possible comparison, the cleaner, less murky soundscape lightening the mood, even as the lyrics point to an imminent crisis. The song serves as an ongoing reminder of Zietsch’s attunement to lyrical, energetic, and sonic paradoxes, her knack for forging fertile juxtapositions.

To Enjoy Is the Only Thing was an exciting introduction to Zietsch’s aesthetic. I Get Into Trouble, however, documents how in the course of two years Zietsch has evolved considerably, in terms of vision and craft. Alongside a natural tendency to sustain tensions and avoid convenient certainties – what the poet Keats called negative capability – is a sophisticated pop flair. With I Get Into Trouble, Zietsch emerges as one of the more eloquent singer-songwriters of her generation”.

A sensational and important artist who we need to follow and support, go and check out Maple Glider and listen to I Get Into Trouble. I am sure that she will be in the U.K. and beyond soon enough. There is a lot of love for her over here. No wonder! You only need to listen to a few minutes of I Get Into Trouble to see that it is one of this year’s very best. This is an artist who is…