"I.C.E. locks them up in a cage"
Margaret Chavez is the new folk rock project of Austin, Texas based artist, singer-songwriter, musician Marcus William Striplin and the psyche art folk rock affair, The Croupiers Unite I.C.E, the first single from MC's stunning album "Into An Atmosphere" (due to drop July 31st, 2020), is a beautiful floating dreamscape of hard truths and horrible consequences, of Governments gone awry and the bread and butter people who voted that government in lending a deaf ear. A croupier is the dealer of the card game, the one who controls the game. Maybe we are all in that role, all to blame and thus all corrupt. It is clear that Striplin is jabbing directly at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and those who enable them, “Their hands are forged in gold and their hearts are as cold [as I.C.E.].”
The Official Video for The Croupiers Unite I.C.E premiered over at The Big Takeover. The following is an excerpt:
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About Into An Atmosphere, Striplin reveals, “I think it’s no coincidence it’s being released in an election year. Maybe there are people who are still on the fence, and they hear it…are like, ‘Oh, man—absolutely!’ I really hope it touches people who are lost.”
Continuing with the political theme and how it manifests on the song “The Croupiers Unite I.C.E.”, Striplin spells out his feelings bluntly and purposefully: “The strength of music can turn around an ignorant mind. This is me trying to serve up a dish that will make the patron stop and think… I literally can’t understand how anyone could support this motherfucker. Children in cages is wrong. This song and all the rest are my protest. I am the laser and you are the cat.”
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Striplin's vocal aesthetic with it's deep almost broken croon feels easy with a kind of lounge punk tone. It is a strange counter-point, stylistically, considering the subject matter. The chorus does have real chilling moments as foreboding synths drone and the Striplin's vocals decay darker, like walking through a sad, decrepit landscape of death, of bodies left to die drowning in the heart of the desert, unable to drink precious water left from humanitarians because they were emptied and torn to pieces by Immigration Agents.
-Robb Donker Curtius
Austin,TX-based outfit Margaret Chavez, whose new folk rock opus, Into An Atmosphere, is a headphone masterpiece. From the very first track, it’s clear why Consequence of Sound, Mojo and Uncut have all been extolling the many virtues of project mastermind Marcus William Striplin—the music is undeniably ambitious, mixing latin freak-folk rhythms with a topicality the microgenre has never dared to approach, even in its heyday. But to call this record “folk” or “even folk rock” would be to curtail its progressive ethos, as Striplin weaves reverb-soaked guitars, undulating synths and effervescent acoustic plucks to create what Uncut calls “a mark of excellence in Americana.”
Striplin’s barbed wit rises to the forefront, riding his gentle croon and lilting sonics past the kind of cliches that often accompany albums of such deep pathos and political awareness. Moving effortlessly from a scathing indictment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the government stooges who enable it (“The Croupier’s Unite I.C.E.”) to a poignant narrative in which he assumes his mother’s point-of-view during her most harrowing moments (“Honeysuckles”), Striplin deftly balances his heartbreaking stories’ jarring content with dense sounds and creeping earworms.
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