Coming Soonish: Afternoon Destroyer

Another Bandcamp Friday is here and I’m happy to announce that I am releasing a tape of Afternoon Destroyer, the 8-song mini-album/EP/whatever that I made in the spring of 2021. Details below!

01 Nope
02 Exterior Signs
03 Privacy Mode
04 Dude, You Really Fucked It Up This Time
05 (I’m A) Modern Woman
06 Near Wild Heaven (R.E.M. cover)
07 Never Sent
08 Afternoon Destroyer

Release date is… Not today! To Be Announced! Whenever I get the tapes back? Fairly soon. Maybe by November BCF, fingers x’ed.

“Near Wild Heaven” only available as part of the download and cassette versions at thisismariat.bandcamp.com

Anyway.

I put out a 3-song release called Destroyed Afternoon and said at the time, “Hey, this title will make sense in the future.” I meant it! I intended to release Afternoon Destroyer before anything but nothing’s ever truly linear. After all the delays and doubts I’m so thrilled it will finally see the light of day. Many thanks to the friends who encouraged me to keep going and actually helped get this thing past the finish line.

I hadn’t touched my guitars for at least 5 years—long enough to stop counting and consider selling them off—when a bad day in the pandemic brought me back to making music (2020 Demos). There were a lot of changes in my personal life and writing these songs were a way of processing all those big, big feelings.

Afternoon Destroyer was written between January and February 2021, hastily recorded at home in March and April on both 4- and 8-track. As you know by now, I play and sing everything. I’m not great at it and you’ll hear that on this recording, but I don’t care. It feels right to do it this way, and in some way perhaps I am making a statement keeping this lo-fi, no budget. There are plenty of dudes who do this to endless accolades. Why can’t I? The whole point of DIY was that you didn’t need an invitation. And honestly, everything I’ve ever done or accomplished throughout the years has been without anyone’s permission, so why stop now.

I have been quietly plugging away at more songs, but I keep returning to these. It is an important document of a particular time in my life. I hope you like these songs; I love them for what they are.