Staff Reviews

Black Marble - It's Immaterial

Review by Stephen Proski

The record captures and remains stuck in a moment»

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Black Marble release their second full-length, It's Immaterial. A collection of songs pieced together from perfect seeming snippets heard while passing open doors. A framework in which your imagination creates its own specific version of what you've been dying to hear but didn't have a way to describe. That song that was put on a mixtape for you and played over and over, but wasn't labeled, so never fully had or found. With both early releases the band followed a familiar path stomped down in the late 70s and all throughout the 80s by bands whose sound and DIY ethics paved the way for other likeminded artists with little formal training or funding to make their own contributions to the genre. Pulling from the pre-'Simply Irresistible' days of early Robert Palmer and first wave pioneers such as Silicon Teens, Iron Curtain, Lives of Angels, and Solid Space, Black Marble dialed in on a clear understanding of its own specific sound, showcased most clearly on this new release with Stewart becoming more comfortable in being clear with what he's trying to say, both subjectively, in terms of the stories he's telling and the things he's willing to talk about, and objectively in terms of the lyrics and upfront vocals, while still experimenting with holding things back to produce a sound more claustrophobic and immediate. Written, recorded, mixed, and performed entirely by Stewart, the new songs are the unified vision of one person's attempt to patchwork together bits of vapor, the most subtle gleanings of preference, and make one whole new thing that's an atmospheric continuation of its parts. An endless drive in the passenger seat of a car while listening to everything you've ever loved, but lasting only 40 minutes.
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