Mar 02, 2023
By Caleb Campbell
Swiss indie singer/songwriter Mary Middlefield debuted last year with a string of singles, knitting together pastoral indie folk and winsome pop melodies with hints of knotted ‘90s indie rock. Those singles proved to be teasers for an upcoming full-length record, Thank you Alexander, due out later this week. Written over the lockdowns while Middlefield was cooped up in her London home, the record captures an insular sense of bleary and lonesome heartache but also brings out a lush beauty, coating Middlefield’s confessions in evocative layers of harmony.
Thank you Alexander is out everywhere on March 3rd, but ahead of the release, Middlefield has shared a final single from the record, “Firearm,” premiering with Under the Radar.
“Firearm” is among Middlefield’s more smoky and meditative efforts, evoking the ethereal longing of songwriters like Tomberlin, Hand Habits, or Lomelda. Mournful downtempo strums of guitar enlace with glimmering hints of synths, burnished by some tastefully understated percussion and swirling swells of strings. The arrangement steadily grows more layered and impassioned, with every piece building higher until the chorus bursts into a wave of pure emotive catharsis as Middlefield exorcises the pain of unrequited love.
As she explains, “When I was writing ‘Firearm’ I asked myself to what extent infidelity counts as betrayal in the circumstances of unrequited love. To what level can you justify seeking comfort in somebody else when you feel unfulfilled and used because you’ve never set healthy boundaries and communicated openly in your relationship? Is it something justifiable or not and how do you deal with the guilt? Is the guilt grounded in infidelity or is it more about sabotaging something that could’ve been? I don’t really know.”
“This is the first song we wrote for the record. Everything felt so fresh and new back then. We were all trying to find our workflow and it really wasn’t easy. Nevertheless, I am so happy with the result. The arrangement is one of my favorite things in the song. The strings building up throughout the song really bring the choruses to life.”
Check out the song below. Thank you Alexander is out everywhere on March 3rd.