Black Marble ‎– It's Immaterial LP green/yellow/black vinyl

Their first for Ghostly, It’s Immaterial follows up their EP Weight Against the Door

(Hardly Art/January 17, 2012) and highly acclaimed debut full-length A Dierent

Arrangement (Hardly Art/October 30, 2012). Still featuring Stewart at the helm along

with select collaborators as supplementation, the band’s recent shift in locale from

East Coast to West Coast lends a great deal to the overall feel of the new album.

The light and dark elements of shadows. The salt and sting of evening’s high tide

sea spray. The crunch of fallen leaves into the sweet stink of overheated orange

blossoms. A beautiful thing left on a shelf too high to maintain. The general mood is

that of creating something new, but going back in time to do it. Like attempting to

flesh out a song that you woke up humming but can’t find, because it doesn’t exist

yet.

With the end of the East Coast chapter of Stewart’s life on the horizon, It’s

Immaterial was recorded in a period of mental and physical transition. Trapped

between spaces and unable to move on until the snow globe flurry of ideas floating

around him settled just right, It’s Immaterial is soaring and muted all at once. A

collection of songs pieced together from perfect seeming snippets heard while

passing open doors. A framework in which your imagination creates its own specific

version of what you’ve been dying to hear but didn’t have a way to describe. That

song that was put on a mixtape for you and played over and over, but wasn’t

labeled, so never fully had or found.

With both early releases the band followed a familiar path stomped down in the late

70s and all throughout the 80s by bands whose sound and DIY ethics paved the

way for other likeminded artists with little formal training or funding to make their

own contributions to the genre. Pulling from the pre-“Simply Irresistible” days of

early Robert Palmer and first wave pioneers such as Silicon Teens, Iron Curtain,

Lives of Angels, and Solid Space, Black Marble dialed in on a clear understanding of

its own specific sound, showcased most clearly on this new release with Stewart

becoming more comfortable in being clear with what he’s trying to say, both

subjectively, in terms of the stories he’s telling and the things he’s willing to talk

about, and objectively in terms of the lyrics and upfront vocals, while still

experimenting with holding things back to produce a sound more claustrophobic

and immediate.

The first songs written for the album, “Frisk,” and “Woods” are good examples of

the nervous energy felt throughout. “Walk all night/the county had to let me

go/Walk all night/I was a force they could not hold,” Stewart sings at the opening of

“Frisk.” He closes the sentiment out with this line at the end of “Woods” - “Why did

you come right out/Why did you come right out/Why did you come right out/Say

what’s on my mind?

It’s Immaterial is musically different in terms of distance compared to A Dierent

Arrangement in the sense that where the songs featured on their debut full-length

seemed to hiss from a vent in the floor, the new tracks seem to be coming from the

next room. Written, recorded, mixed, and performed entirely by Stewart, the new

songs are the unified vision of one person’s attempt to patchwork together bits of

vapor, the most subtle gleanings of preference, and make one whole new thing

that’s an atmospheric continuation of its parts. An endless drive in the passenger

seat of a car while listening to everything you’ve ever loved, but lasting only 40

minutes.

Label: Ghostly International – GI-275

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Repress, Green/Yellow/Black

Country: US

Released: 2021

Genre: Electronic, Rock

Style: Alternative Rock, Synth-pop, Coldwave, Post-Punk

Tracklist

A1 Interdiction

A2 Iron Lung

A3 It's Conditional

A4 Woods

A5 A Million Billion Stars

A6 A Missing Sibling

B1 Frisk

B2 Golden Heart

B3 Self Guided Tours

B4 Portland U

B5 Collene