Sucker Crush and the mournful gray skies and emotional roller coaster rides of "Stranger"

 

"Spring of '13 / Blanketed in grey Chicago snow / Concrete shoreline / You could see in me black water vast / I fell for your fire / It eats you from within / For all that we confessed in silenced texts / You were my friend..."

The mournful gray skies and emotional roller coaster rides of "Stranger" by Sucker Crush, the folk chamber pop (and more) project of singer-songwriter / musician Marissa Deitz, is a beautiful and somber dark wave crashing down upon you. Thematically, the storylines and what you can imagine in between them can feel crushingly dour at times with the orgainica of a classical chamber ensemble pulls you in one direction and bending blips and exploding blisters of electronica feels discordant and uncomfortable like body horror or one's brain malfunctioning in some way. Don't get me wrong all this happens while light shines in from somewhere else, the melodies that run throughout often times end on hopeful notes. 

For me, this is the kind of moods I like to swim in from time to time (sometimes often) because the overall filmic sense has emotional weight and as much loss as I feel while listening to "Stranger", there is a sense of survivorship and questions hanging in the air, like the effects colored bass clarinet that sounds like a Ben Vince avant garde sax experiment, asking is the stranger at the end of the song someone else or Deitz herself?? I suspect the former as I pour over the lovely poetry of the lyrics, that feel diaristic, but not sure.  

"Spring of '13

Blanketed in grey Chicago snow
Concrete shoreline
You could see in me black water vast

I fell for your fire
It eats you from within
For all that we confessed in silenced texts
You were my friend

One year later
Fluorescent beach in city's reach
Moonlight in late October
You said to me, "let's get married"

You held my hand in June
I swore myself to you
I'll try to get the story right

But I've told it to myself so many times

California,
Seasons the same
Grad school, car crash
Lost yourself in shattered glass

You fell away from me
Exhaled into a dream
You drank until your insides died
And I gazed upon a stranger

Spring of '16
That's when we said "this is the end."


"Stranger" is the first track from the new Sucker Crush EP "Echoqualia" which you can listen to via Bandcamp.

-Robb Donker Curtius

THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM 

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3J93Y2KkeDMHAFmCn1dovX

https://suckercrush.bandcamp.com/

https://www.instagram.com/sucker.crush/

https://www.facebook.com/5uckercru5h/

https://marissadeitz.com/


Sucker Crush first fluttered its wet baby wings back in 2016, when songwriter Marissa Deitz wrote some very sad songs and began playing them for people. During sleepless nights while finishing an MFA program at Mills College, she processed the end of her marriage and creative partnership through bleak and candid musical frameworks. Sucker Crush is a project about heartbreak, and self reclamation, and sometimes about small sweet things like plants and pets and video games. She now plays music with her friends in Oakland, CA. If you like this music, you can come see it live sometime or buy a tape at https://suckercrush.bandcamp.com/.

Sucker Crush, avant garde folk, folk, indie, alt rock, alt folk, dream pop, bedroom, confessional songs, new EP "Echoqualia", evocative single "Stranger", diaristic lyrics, orchestrations, orchestral music, deep,