Maple Glider ‘As Tradition’/ Review by Lakshmi Krishnan
Maple Glider tenderly wrestles with unlayering love and expectations in a disarming, nostalgia release “As Tradition”.
Naarm-based singer-songwriter Tori Zietsch takes an evocative first step into her newest outfit as Maple Glider, symphonically straddling the dark remnants of her religious upbringing and a past romantic relationship in her charming “ork-pop” debut, “As Tradition”.
“I was raised from birth in quite a restrictive religious household… I realised that I hadn’t really processed a lot of the ways that I’d been affected by it. Going through my last break-up I could draw a lot of parallels between the feelings I’d had participating in the religion as I’d had in that particular relationship. I felt my identity kind of dissolve…” says Glider, meditating on her personal history interwoven into the single.
Photo Credit by Bridgette Winten
Glider dips right into an almost noir-ish overture with undulating contralto like vocals that harken to the sultry attitudes of Angel Olsen and Adrianne Lenker, as she finally falls away from a suffocation of lost identity. There is a softness and sensuality to Glider’s constant orbit around the posturing of love and acceptance for others, barring herself, that feels strikingly familiar in her melancholic yet mildly rosy lyrics, “love is just a word I have learned I may use at my own expense”. The song is immediately drunk with a tempered ripple of indie-baroque strung chords that tread between ethereality and ‘sadcore’ Americana folk-pop melodies, courtesy of the honeyed production chops from #1 Dads and Big Scary’s Tom lansek.
To accompany the single, Glider has released an equally romantic music video directed by her housemate and photographer Bridgette Winten. Shot on a Super 8, the film flicks between dreamy fun-loved clips of Glider pulling lonely smiles at the camera and dressing up in glamorous 70's inspired costumes as she prepares for a birthday party alone.
“I really love Brid[gette]'s film photography and I knew I wanted to make a video with her for ages as she'd started experimenting with Super 8mm film and the results were so beautiful and warm and textured…There's an element of loneliness to it that definitely reflects some of the feelings I'd had when I was writing 'As Tradition' but also a silliness that I feel quite accurately captures who I am as a person”, says Glider on the filming process.
~Watch the dazzling music video below~
Maple Glider’s debut single “As Tradition” is officially out via twntythree on all streaming services. Stay updated with the artist here.
Words by Lakshmi Krishnan.
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