photo by Daven Martinez
The heavy industrial punk barrage and romantic distortions of "The Executioner" is as gothic metal as it is baroque pop in nature, spiralling into places that might feel like a go for bloody broke revenge tale in an A24 emotionally toxic horror flick. Songs can be a lot of things, soundscapes for life, something to dance to, something to drive your car to hurling down PCH, to hold up a reflective mirror, to be a think piece from top to bottom, to stimulate your ID and also as an unabashedly honest bloodletting, maybe as catharsis or maybe just to bleed. I feel like Nicole Marxen primarily does three of these things with devastatingly great effect on this track.
On the song, Nicole Marxen says:
“I wrote The Executioner from a place where I thought things couldn’t possibly get any worse, but then they did. My day job's main client at the time was The Richards Group. Nobody knew what was going to happen. We had no control over the situation, and yet were directly impacted. I kept moving through swells of rage and devastation, I felt utterly powerless.”
There is a lot of psychic or psychological noise here and Marxen's evocative vocal howl runs the gamut from purging pain to straight on self flagellation, rawly beautiful and sometimes chilling like a deathly biting cold wind against your skin. Sonically, I love a lot going on here but my favorite musical aspects are the bass and drums unrelenting stomp, plod, dead man walking aesthetic within the storm of guitar and rotting synths. Marxen's purge vocal, as unworldly as a Diamanda Galás and as glacially haunting as Anna von Hausswolff might make you exclaim, "Holy shit!" or might have you curled up on the couch crying.
LINER NOTES (in crimson red):
Her 2021 solo debut Tether received acclaim from Post-punk.com, CVLT Nation, Audiofemme, and FLOOD Magazine, while earning a spot on Destroy//Exist’s EPs of the Year list. A meditation on the grieving process, Tether inhabits a realm “draped in shadow, full of cutting synths and gothy, ghostly vocal melodies” (Bandcamp).
Producer Alex Bhore (Halo Infinite Multiplayer and Meow Wolf Grapevine) returns to the helm for Marxen’s sophomore release, as the two weave a sonic tapestry spanning dreams, disorders, and our own failing attention amidst a crumbling, clawing patriarchy. Sung like a haunted confessional, the title track explores Marxen’s lived experience with lesser-known impulse disorder Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors. BFRBs involve acts of unconsciously harming the body, and often serve as a trauma response to self-regulate. She equates these acts to sabotage, “like a rabid animal / my body betrays itself.”
Through a more collective lens, the song “The Executioner” witnesses the fallout in Marxen’s professional career of commercial production after the cancellation of the largest advertising agency in Dallas, The Richards Group. It begs the questions - what happens to the rest of us when men of power fuck up? Is the patriarchy disarmed, or merely shapeshifting to satisfy us in the here and now?
Producer Alex Bhore (Halo Infinite Multiplayer and Meow Wolf Grapevine) returns to the helm for Marxen’s sophomore release, as the two weave a sonic tapestry spanning dreams, disorders, and our own failing attention amidst a crumbling, clawing patriarchy. Sung like a haunted confessional, the title track explores Marxen’s lived experience with lesser-known impulse disorder Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors. BFRBs involve acts of unconsciously harming the body, and often serve as a trauma response to self-regulate. She equates these acts to sabotage, “like a rabid animal / my body betrays itself.”
Through a more collective lens, the song “The Executioner” witnesses the fallout in Marxen’s professional career of commercial production after the cancellation of the largest advertising agency in Dallas, The Richards Group. It begs the questions - what happens to the rest of us when men of power fuck up? Is the patriarchy disarmed, or merely shapeshifting to satisfy us in the here and now?
“It was important for me to show up to this material imperfectly,” Marxen says. “As a songwriter, I can put a lot of pressure on myself, often feeling like I have to say something profound or reach a kind of resolve. I didn’t want to pretend to have answers here, but rather notice what was coming up for me during each song’s moment in time.” With Thorns, Marxen encourages us to no longer accept such tendencies to gnaw at the wounds of our human experience, but rather root into the wild garden of our flawed and beautiful being.
Nicole Marxen's debut full length album "Thorns" dropped on August 9, 2024.
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://nicolemarxen.bandcamp.com/album/tether
https://www.instagram.com/nicomarxen/
https://www.facebook.com/nicolemarxenmusic
https://x.com/nicolemarxen
Nicole Marxen is a Dallas-based musician and visual artist. Known as one of the shiny dark innovators behind acclaimed avant-garde pop band Midnight Opera.
Debut full length album "Thorns"
released August 9, 2024
Music, lyrics, vocals, synthesizers, production, engineering by Nicole Marxen
Music, guitars, bass, synthesizers, drums, production, engineering, mixing by Alex Bhore
Recorded at Elmwood Recording in Dallas, TX
Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Mastering in Los Angeles, CA
Photography by Daven Martinez
Design by Claire Morales
Sigil by Nicole Marxen
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://nicolemarxen.bandcamp.com/album/tether
https://www.instagram.com/nicomarxen/
https://www.facebook.com/nicolemarxenmusic
https://x.com/nicolemarxen
Nicole Marxen is a Dallas-based musician and visual artist. Known as one of the shiny dark innovators behind acclaimed avant-garde pop band Midnight Opera.
Debut full length album "Thorns"
released August 9, 2024
Music, lyrics, vocals, synthesizers, production, engineering by Nicole Marxen
Music, guitars, bass, synthesizers, drums, production, engineering, mixing by Alex Bhore
Recorded at Elmwood Recording in Dallas, TX
Mastered by Dave Cooley at Elysian Mastering in Los Angeles, CA
Photography by Daven Martinez
Design by Claire Morales
Sigil by Nicole Marxen
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