more eaze – valley and structure | Album Review

Thrill Jockey

In my dreams, I inhabit a world that has become reassuringly familiar over my thirty-odd years of sleep. I often return to the same three landscapes. One is a large room, wood-paneled and crowded, where I often encounter friends, or at least memories of them. The next is a vast mountain landscape, stretching beyond the tree line, sickeningly sheer cliffs dropping into millions of acres of granite. The last is my favorite: a deeply verdant and misty hill region, threaded by a road that never leads me to my destination, no matter how long I sleep. There is strange comfort in these landscapes - relief in the repetition of whatever pattern my unconscious brain is tracing. I feel similarly about music, finding myself consistently drawn to minimalist works. The thrum of the music’s predictability brings me comfort, cocooning my ears with a beautiful structure of rhythms, patterns, and notes. 

Because of this, I expected that valley and structure, the latest release from composer Mari Rubio, would immediately capture my minimalism-loving ears. Mari releases music under the name more eaze, both solo and with a rotating group of musicians behind her. I’ve greatly enjoyed her body of work over the years, watching with admiration as the worlds she spins with each new release build upon themselves in delicate, haunting webs. When I reviewed one of more eaze’s recent albums, sentence structure in the country, I commented on the otherworldly aspect of the music - it felt surreal, even dystopian, merging nature with machines. This effect is certainly also present on valley and structure, but in a distinctly different way. Instead of a darkly alien dystopian atmosphere, I sense vast open spaces, eternal fields of waving golden grass, and mirages that taunt from an indistinct horizon. A cloudless sky screams silently above, empty and infinite and possibly too blue. It’s a different brand of dystopia: everything is so perfect, so clean, so empty, that it cannot be anything but unsettling. The tie between these two albums is clear, not only in name but also in theme: whispers and fragments of sentence structure float through valley and structure like leaves in a breeze. It’s a brilliant concept, further tying more eaze’s worldbuilding into itself in a deeply satisfying way.

The album opens with a track titled “they tried to shove me in the structure,” featuring a deftly plucked guitar line that loops and drives forward incessantly. It’s accompanied by warm string swells that alternate between joy and unease, captured in a continuous dance. As I wander the golden grasses of this album’s landscape, I see the first sign of life in the terrible blue sky above: a hawk and a sparrow whirling in dizzying spirals, fighting over territory. The sparrow is relentless, but the hawk evades her, and their struggle traces a Möbius strip in the sky. A thin layer of strings hum in my ears as I watch them, and I notice the guitar’s arpeggios have started to lead away from the home key. However, the tension eases slightly as the rhythmic playing returns to the familiar notes of the opening chord progression. The hawk, realizing it will not be able to outsmart the persistent sparrow, breaks the loop and disappears into the endless azure ceiling. The sparrow has avoided the structure. Radio feedback crackles in my ears, and I realize I am not alone. 

I look around me and catch a glimpse of something metallic on the wavering horizon. The next track, “what’s wrong with the structure?” begins to play: a solo violin enters, bowing a precise string of notes that resemble a technical exercise. Its eerie quality is heightened as another violin joins, harmonizing in various intervals, and the music begins to melt together as a wind instrument adds to the arrangement. There is a faint clatter of voices and static layered behind the instruments, the piece whirring from one ear to the other until, at last, the guitar joins in. Dreamy whole-tone progressions create a blurry atmosphere - I notice a piano fading in and out, the deep thud of a bass, and even the shimmer of a distant synth organ. The silvery chords match the glint of the structure on the horizon I am walking toward. It flickers like a mirage, but the closer I get, the clearer it comes into focus. 

As I mentioned earlier, I am deeply drawn to minimalism for its sense of familiarity and the comfort I find in repetition. This same hypnotic quality is present throughout valley and structure, especially on track three: “once you say yes to the structure, you never get out.” An intensely rhythmic violin melody opens the track, paired in unison with guitar and bass. As I trudge towards the monolithic silver building on the horizon, I am reminded of an album that drives in a similar way. “Different Trains,” I muse silently. It’s one of minimalist composer Steve Reich’s best works. A moving, captivating, and powerful piece of art, I love its texture and depth. I find more eaze employing her own gifts of textural writing here, the instruments whirling around each other, mirroring their melodies in a method so contrapuntal that it feels damn near Baroque. The building is closer than ever, yet I have never walked so far. Everything comes around to itself in the end - modern music sounds Baroque, and the hawk is conquered by the sparrow.

I notice that the music has not stopped playing. Pleased, for I don’t want the song to end, I note that it’s exactly 20 minutes and two seconds long. 20:02 - a delightful numerical palindrome. Another Möbius strip of sorts. Around the eight-minute mark, “once you say yes to the structure, you never get out” slows, skulking back into the only shadow on this planet: the one cast by the building, its darkness a gash across endless miles of golden wheat. There is no whirling melody now, just sustained strings and the occasional comment from the piano. A low, dull humming fills the air as I find myself at the base of the building. There are no windows and no doors. It is hot even in the shade, hotter than it was under the eternal blue void. So I wait as brass and guitar offer their nervous harmonies. I hear a soft voice humming beneath the strings, though I’ve not noticed any company. The air grows heavier as the seconds pass, and the music plods now, no longer hiding in the shadows, but pulling itself along under the blazing sun. I notice the hawk has returned to the sky, whirling in spirals that draw closer to the ground with each rotation. The music has become frantic, and I find my heart beating in my hand, staining my palm red. On the horizon, the grasses dance with anticipation, and the violins follow in a fierce ostinato. I am weeping without knowing it. My heart is no longer a heart; before my eyes, it becomes the sparrow. And then the building opens with a scream – 

– and swallows me. “i’m in the structure.”

This is my favorite song. A heartwrenching melody, sung by an invisible entity, echoes in my ears as I am borne up, up, up to the top of the building. Major one to minor six chords, I note. It’s the same progression as my favorite song of all time, “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. I am still weeping, tears coursing silently down my face. I do not know why. The violin wounds me, so beautiful that I ache with every note. The sound of waves crashing surround me, filling my ears with pressure as though I were underwater, but I am dry and surrounded by light. I am at the top of the building now, and I still hear the voice singing to me: "I’m content to be the void that collapses time and space / tracing out the melodies, replacing / tones / the faceless friend somehow never alone / blanketed by tastes.” I know these lyrics, for they are the same ones used on “The Producer,” a track from sentence structure in the country. Hearing them on this album, in an ethereal new setting, is like greeting an old friend. I am in the structure, and have only just entered the structure, but maybe I have always been here.

Time bends, and cold air burns my lungs without warning. I am on top of the monolithic building now, and there is no visible way to leave. “how can we get out of the structure” is the final track on valley and structure, and the only means of escape for the listener, and for me. The plucked, near-percussive rhythm at the beginning mirrors my heartbeat as I contemplate my options for escape. I sense that I am not alone: I turn slowly and behold something more than light but less than solid. I am briefly reminded of the Eldil of Perelandra. So this has been the source of the singing, the melodies, the driving life of this strange planet. As the music begins to deepen and build, the ever-present piano weaves through the top and then the bottom of the melody like a bright blue thread. Harmonies begin to melt into dissonance, and as the chill of the thin air cuts through my clothes, I hear the more-than-light being start to sing. The music is disintegrating slowly, beautifully, but the driving rhythm never falters. The light atop the structure is all-consuming, growing with each breath, and a honey-sweet breeze carries the sound of victory. I too am light, more than light, and I watch the structure sink into the golden grasses. Suspended in air, I spiral higher with the hawk and the sparrow. The entire planet vibrates with joyous melody, and I – I am singing too.

---

Britta Joseph is a musician and artist who, when she isn’t listening to records or deep-diving emo archives on the internet, enjoys writing poetry, reading existential literature, and a good iced matcha. You can find her on Instagram @brittajoes.

more eaze – sentence structure in the country | Album Review

Thrill Jockey

On one of my family’s many trips to Southern California to visit my grandparents, we made our customary stop at Carpinteria Beach. Consumed with excitement, I burst out of the car the moment it stopped, scuttling towards the shore as fast as the uneven terrain would allow. The Pacific beckoned to me as a long-lost friend, pale green waves rushing to hug my short, sturdy legs. I smiled at the waving sea and noticed the way the sand felt between my toes. At my big age of six, I felt very important because I knew that the sand on these beaches was really just lots of tiny pebbles, so tiny that you couldn’t tell unless you looked really closely. Of course, looking really closely at things was my favorite pastime. I had recently received a child’s microscope for Christmas, complete with real slides and many delightful cross-sections to examine. The tide pools at this particular beach were another thing I liked looking closely at, each feeling like its own little microscope slide, a cross-section of the ocean that I loved so dearly. The textures, colors, and gentle motion within each pool enchanted me, and every visit provided some new fascination for my curious mind.

I have been drawn to texture and color in music for as long as I have loved the ocean. Every moment deserves precise decoration and shading, filled with a gentle motion that undulates without end as the tides do. I love music that swirls and crunches and buzzes and hums, any given moment displaying a vivid cross-section of its aural ecosystem. more eaze, the pen name of musician Mari Rubio, composes in this wonderful, variegated vein. Her most recent release, sentence structure in the country, is a beautiful and tapestried release that is yellow-warm with detail. Synthesizers, found sounds, string instruments, and vocals hang together like a dense kelp forest, every glitch and murmur precisely where it belongs. Rubio tapped musicians Alice Gerlach (cello), Jade Guterman (acoustic guitar), Ryan Sawyer (drums), Henry Earnest (electric guitar), and Wendy Eisenberg (piano, vocals, electric guitar) to realize the artistic vision alongside her.

Last year, I had the privilege of reviewing one of Mari’s previous albums, No Floor, a collaborative release with ambient artist claire rousay. The detailed, thoughtful placement of each sound throughout that album deeply impressed me. This type of composing is especially challenging, as it requires an innate understanding of the balance and relationship between each sound chosen for a song. You have to be able to achieve depth without busyness, clarity without sounding shallow, and intention without becoming predictable. The talent I observed from more eaze on No Floor is reflected and amplified on sentence structure in the country. 

The album opens with “leave (again),” a track lush with synth effects, pleasingly autotuned vocals, and emotive strings. It’s an incredibly impactful opener, immediately pulling the listener inside more eaze’s world, succinct and organized like the tide pools of my youth. “If you only knew why I lock the doors / You’d say it's illogical / and I’d say of course,” Mari hums as a melancholic synth organ repeats a rising melody line. “I’d say let’s go outside / but it’s far too warm.” Static crackles over these words, and I am reminded of one of my favorite perfumes, Warm Bulb by Clue. The perfume has a note called “burning dust” that fizzes in my nostrils and makes my nose wrinkle in the best way. It smells like a hot attic and old vanilla. This is exactly how “leave (again)” feels; the static hum is warm, dusty, and comforting, Mari’s vocals soothe, and the entire effect is incandescently cozy. 

This intimate mood shifts on the second track, “distance,” where the atmosphere is immediately cooler, sparser, and more reserved. Dense, blurred harmonies fill the piece's background like fog, inviting yet unimpenetrable. The lyrics of “distance” capture the unsettling feeling of growing apart from a friend or even completely losing a relationship. Life rushes on regardless, but there are subtle shifts in routine as certain things, once so significant, become mundane or disappear entirely. more eaze’s vocals create an otherworldly ambiance as they melt into the surrounding landscape of sound.

from the ground
to the stairs
one time
the last time

four o clock
for me
means something less to you

the scene changes
but mood
does not improve

“distance” is a track on this album that I have already found myself returning to regularly. I wish to fall into the song and let its velvety grey fog surround me, catching me mid-air as the alien atmosphere captivates every sense. This is what sets the work of more eaze apart — she creates landscapes, microcosms, dioramas. Each track is a glimpse of a world in miniature, a tide pool of sound and texture and emotion. 

more eaze continues her exploration of these worlds on “biters,” which stands in stark contrast to the atmosphere of “distance.” This particular microcosm is metallic, and as I listen with my eyes closed, I feel as if I am standing in the middle of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There is something large and ominous looming ahead, and there is something else much faster than I, roaring past. The wind whips my legs and pulls the jacket on my back taut against my skin. Electronic sounds glitch and garble through my ears. I wince as everything starts to sound closer and louder, but there is something familiar too. A smooth vocal line weaves its way through the chaos and razor edges of the noises crowding against my ears. Everything — the sounds, the voice, the volume — presses against my eardrums until it is almost too much, and then suddenly it is quiet. A breath, and a twangy guitar jangles in my ears. Where am I now? Drums skitter behind me like a tumbleweed and violins warm the air. There is singing again, raw and very close by. Everything crashes against my ears once more, but now I am floating, and I feel something like the sun against my eyelids. The whir of something fast intertwines with the guitar, acoustic against electronic. The air is very hot. I open my eyes as the dust settles and I am back on Earth.

“a chorale” is the world I love most on the journey this album takes. I have always been peculiarly drawn to works for strings, marveling at the depth of feeling that such simple instruments can create. Works like the evergreen “Adagio for Strings” by Barber, “Violin Concerto No. 1” by Philip Glass, and “Different Trains” by Steve Reich all hold a treasured place in my heart. They are moving to the point of being gut-wrenching, but I find myself returning to this sort of work again and again anyway. Because of this, I was delighted when the raw opening notes of “a chorale” met my ears for the first time. This piece is like coming upon a sunlit clearing in a dense forest, feeling the air suddenly warm around you and watching the light dance through it. This fleeting, gorgeous track ends with a poignant sustained note that feels like a heartbreak. As the echoes of that final note still resonate in my head, the next track, “healing attempt,” immediately shifts to a sunrise-warm synth. Little glitches scintillate through the beginning of the song as mari sings, “Princess of the texture / is looking quite vexed / at last year’s biography / It’s not a good mixture / when you win Best Picture for making a fool of me.” Suddenly, the song shifts stylistically, adding twangy acoustic guitar and background vocals that are charmingly reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens. “healing attempt” is a clever, tongue-in-cheek dissection of navigating growing fame and recognition, recognizing that it is just “the same hollow entry to something new.”

For the entire album so far, I have pondered the meaning of the title. What is sentence structure in the country? I like ambiguous, abstract concepts in art, so it appealed to me immediately; however, I also wanted to figure out the hidden meaning, so I was excited to finally listen to the title track. Though solely instrumental, this piece feels like bearing witness to a heated conversation. Strings slide and snap, skittering melodies are plucked on a guitar, electronic sounds murmur and scoff. A fiddle tune begins to worm its way into the piece, becoming more agitated, rushing through a fiery jig as the argument continues. It becomes obvious that, though the title seemed abstract to me at first, this song captures the precise feeling of sentence structure in the country. This is a brilliantly executed idea: the explanation of the title is saved until the penultimate track, and though “sentence structure” implies the use of language and grammar, more eaze achieves this reveal without using either. 

Tide pools fill at high tide and meet their mother ocean again. These tiny worlds become part of the vast Pacific, though but for a few hours. sentence structure in the country is filled with exquisitely crafted songs that each stand as their own tide pool, but together they swirl and froth into something bigger and even more beautiful. Mari Rubio has once again proven her mastery in creating immersive, thoughtful works of art with this release.

I sense that the tide is rolling in as the waves swirling around my sandy legs feel a little more eager than before, and I carefully wave goodbye before running up the sand.

---

Britta Joseph is a musician and artist who, when she isn’t listening to records or deep-diving emo archives on the internet, enjoys writing poetry, reading existential literature, and a good iced matcha. You can find her on Instagram @brittajoes.

more eaze and claire rousay – no floor | Album Review

Thrill Jockey

In the backrooms of my memory, redwoods and oceans blur into deep snow and summits, each shining like a precious stone. I guard these collections of memory like a sullen dragon, unwilling to lose even a moment in these sacred landscapes. One of my favorite places is central California’s Mono Lake region. The sparseness of its sweeping high desert plains, dotted with the few trees brave enough to weather its arid seasons, brought me to tears the first time I experienced it as a child. There is power there, barely concealed in the violent crags and glacial scars, yet there is softness in the surrender of the earth to its own weaponry. I am enchanted by tide pools – each a miniature universe, easily disrupted by the swipe of a careless hand. The gentle starfish and hurried hermit crabs bear no burdens, suffer no cares, and allow the whims of the tides to carry them to the next microcosm that fate deems they ought to inhabit. As a young girl, I would ponder the little creatures as they seemed to regard me with a similarly curious gaze, humming to myself as the icy waters of the Pacific lapped at my rosy feet.

I sense the same reverence for place in more eaze and claire rousay’s brilliant new release, no floor. Through the five tracks of their collaborative LP, there runs a feeling of deep, almost holy, nostalgia for rural America. Having grown up rurally myself, I have an appreciation for the odd beauty that comes with such a youth – the dilapidated grocery stores in lonely strip malls, scattered livestock farms, sprawling meadows, and brilliantly starry night skies. There is a charm to it that is distinctly American and unique to each region of the country. As more eaze (mari maurice) and claire rousay hail from Texas and Canada, respectively (both equally barren places), there is a specific feeling to this LP - not like country music, no. It is the feel of vast plains of emptiness, waving fields of golden grass, and shimmering heat mirages on roads that lay straight for miles. It is the incomprehensible loneliness of living twenty, thirty, or forty miles from the next town and experiencing the paradox of both isolation and overwhelm. It is the great grief of loving a place that you know you have to leave – unwillingly divorcing a part of your very being. That is the feeling of no floor.

maurice and rousay have already made a name for themselves both individually and collaboratively as producers and composers, each with an impressive (if not daunting) body of work. While their previous output proves their talent in the electronic, ambient, and hyperpop genres, no floor sees the two powerhouses working together in an entirely new way. According to the composers, no floor is an ode to a specific set of third places like bars where they spent time together over the course of their youth. The duo humorously refers to them as “pillars of our debauchery.” Third places are socially necessary and would include anywhere that people can foster a sense of community outside of the home (the first place) and work (the second place). They are a tragically diminishing commodity for today’s young people as the world rushes towards a seemingly inevitable digital existence. I have favorite third places - the library, concert venues, museums - and I cherish making memories in them with people I care about. An entire album dedicated to the places and evenings whiled away by rousay and maurice is a beautiful, tender tribute to youth.

Photo by Katherine Squier

Each track on no floor is a living, vibrant collage of whimsical created sounds, supported by rousay’s delicately sparse guitar work and maurice’s pedal steel. The use of shimmering, warm strings throughout this LP captured my heart immediately, as I have a soft spot for them in my own work and find that they lend incomparable emotion. The opening piece on no floor is called “hopfields,” and the locale in question is an elegant brasserie in Austin. The track opens with a plucked guitar, joined by swells of pedal steel and crackling static in the background. My ears feel as though they are cocooned in angora as the music relaxes and evolves over the course of eight gentle minutes. One can easily picture soft conversation over glittering cocktails as humming synth and an achingly beautiful string line paint a warm, blurry picture. In the background, one hears something akin to a train whistle, and I imagine that I can feel the rumbling of steel wheels as I lean back in my chair and close my eyes.

The third track on this release is even more specific than the first, zooming all the way in to depict “the applebees outside kalamazoo, michigan.” Instead of feeling safe and welcoming like “hopfields,” “applebees” has a distinctly eerie, almost sinister, aura. Though the track opens in a warm and inviting way, it quickly transforms into something entirely different: odd glitches and low, brooding strings create a feeling of unease. The composers mention that they stopped at this particular Applebee's during a tour, and their unfamiliarity with the area comes through the piece as sliding pitches that lead to uncomfortable, though brief, dissonances unsettled me and gave me the unnerving sense of being watched. “applebees” could very easily soundtrack an A24 thriller – beauty juxtaposed against something deeply, viscerally off. Though the piece is strange and otherworldly, I am drawn to it for those very reasons. It is compelling and stands out in the tracklist like a desolate truck stop in the middle of the night-time desert, haunted and glowing fluorescent.

“kinda tropical” is less specific in title, though just as exact in sound. The second track on the album (and also my favorite) is littered with wonderfully charming glitches that skip and stutter throughout. This cacophony of synths is supported by tenuous strings that fade in and out, sometimes violently swelling to a fever pitch before disappearing like snowflakes on skin. This track sounds like how my favorite landscapes feel - sparse, vast, and gorgeously compelling. Though this is the most minimalistic work on no floor, it is nonetheless stunningly evocative. As a devotee of the American minimalist genre and its composers, I love works that contain multitudes of emotion and storytelling through repeated motifs, sounds, and rhythmic textures. “kinda tropical” proves how effective this style of composition can be: less is more here.

With the release of no floor, more eaze and claire rousay have once again surpassed their own standards and broken their own molds. This LP is magical and mysterious, a pristine sketchbook of connection during the tumult of youth. It is a glorious and eccentric tribute to the otherworldly element of rural living and the transformative power that third places hold. In the past, I have found collaborative releases to come across as forced, an arranged marriage of sorts, but no floor proves that artistic union can be found between artists – and that it is an incredible thing when done well. 

Britta Joseph is a musician and artist who, when she isn’t listening to records or deep-diving emo archives on the internet, enjoys writing poetry, reading existential literature, and a good iced matcha. You can find her on Instagram @brittajoes.