Margaret Chavez’s art rock, folk indie lullaby "HORA" is a sparkling diamond

"you've got time"

I used to be into diamonds. It was a long time ago but I knew how to identify a great stone. I knew some of the best jewelers in Los Angeles. I carried around my own loupe. Since then I grew to hate everything about that world and realized that there is (for the most part) an exact opposite correlation between those who adorned themselves in those bloody representations of wealth and those who do not in relationship to one's ability to be real, empathetic and loving. The more jewelry, the less soul. It is an easy equation. I only bring that up because when I had my gemology shit down it was exceptionally easy to spot the most brilliant stone. Trying to find a middle tier gem was much harder, talking yourself into not seeing the inclusions however so faint. The song HORA from Margaret Chavez's folk rock opus "Into An Atmosphere" (due to drop on July 31st) is a fucking brilliant gem of a song. It is easy to "see" right away.

Margaret Chavez is the musical art rock / folk indie realization of Austin based singer-songwriter, composer, musician Marcus William Striplin. Within HORA, he crafts a lullaby in a constant ascension. The feeling is circular, like a waltz or mantra or slowly turning ornate carousel. Striplin's vocal aesthetic with a beautiful low tone, staring inward, crooning with closed eyes in familial ways. As the carousel turns the song builds like an anthem and his voice can belt out in surprising ways. It is a lovely thing to behold the first time around and the fifteenth. By then you might be finding yourself playing air drums or simply swaying to the guitar sustains and that voice, "you've got your mother's eyes". At one point the sheer emotion seems to implode in on itself. It is right before you see that bright sparkle.

-Robb Donker Curtius










THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

Austin,TX-based outfit Margaret Chavez is getting ready to release his latest folk rock opus, Into An Atmosphere, out July 31 on We Know Better Records. In the studio, helping to nurture Margaret Chavez’s ambition, was Striplin’s longtime recording partner Stuart Sikes (Cat Power, Loretta Lynn, The White Stripes, Phosphorescent), and mastering genius Greg Calbi (John Lennon, Tame Impala, The Strokes, Iggy Pop, David Bowie), as well as Paul Williams and Don Cento—all of whom brought a clarity and ceaseless energy to the recording process.

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. Gentle acoustic guitar cascades throughout the tracks, as synths zip in and out of focus, like a U.F.O. observing some desert-road horror show.