Nicole Marxen announces new album »Thorns« out August 9th and shares title track and new music video!

Dallas, Texas based musician and visual artist Nicole Marxen has announced her new album, »Thorns«, which will be released on August 9th, 2024.

Watch a music video for the first single and title track »Thorns«!

Tracklist:
01. Path Of Fire
02. Blood Of Mine
03. Thorns
04. Dark Water
05. Ride
06. Hang The Moon
07. Lullaby
08. Fever Dream
09. The Executioner
10. Destroyer

Courtesy of Clarion Call Media:

Nicole Marxen announces new album »Thorns« out August 9 and shares title track and new music video!

“Sonically landing somewhere between Kavinsky and Cold Cave.” – Flood Magazine

“We’re excited to see her star climb ever-higher with this important, innovative solo endeavor.” – Dallas Observer

“Nicole Marxen’s voice has Zola Jesus’ and Kate Bush’s sonic echoes in abundance, full of promise, mystery, and danger for the unwary.” – Analogue Trash

Stream »Thorns« on all digital platforms!

On August 9th, Dallas-based singer-songwriter and visual artist Nicole Marxen will release her new album »Thorns« digitally and on vinyl (pre-order). Today Nicole Marxen is excited to share the album’s title track and its accompanying video which Judd Myers directed. »Thorns« debuted this week at Post-Punk and is on all streaming platforms for any playlist shares.

Photos by Daven Martinez

On the video director Judd Myers says: “Channeling themes of cycles and compulsion, »Thorns« is a liminal, giallo-tinged portrait about the transformation that arises in reuniting with what we’ve pushed into the dark.”

Nicole Marxen’s 2021 solo debut Tether received acclaim from Post-Punk.com, CVLT Nation, Audiofemme, and FLOOD Magazine, while earning a spot on Destroy//Exist’s EPs of the Year list. A meditation on the grieving process, Tether inhabits a realm “draped in shadow, full of cutting synths and gothy, ghostly vocal melodies” (Bandcamp).

Producer Alex Bhore (Halo Infinite Multiplayer and Meow Wolf Grapevine) returns to the helm for Marxen’s sophomore release, as the two weave a sonic tapestry spanning dreams, disorders, and our own failing attention amidst a crumbling, clawing patriarchy. Sung like a haunted confessional, the title track explores Marxen’s lived experience with lesser-known impulse disorder Body-Focused Repetitive Behaviors. BFRBs involve acts of unconsciously harming the body and often serve as a trauma response to self-regulate. She equates these acts to sabotage, “like a rabid animal / my body betrays itself.”

Through a more collective lens, the song »The Executioner« witnesses the fallout in Marxen’s professional career of commercial production after the cancellation of the largest advertising agency in Dallas, The Richards Group. It begs the question – what happens to the rest of us when men of power fuck up? Is the patriarchy disarmed, or merely shapeshifting to satisfy us in the here and now?

“It was important for me to show up to this material imperfectly,” Marxen says. “As a songwriter, I can put a lot of pressure on myself, often feeling like I have to say something profound or reach a kind of resolve. I didn’t want to pretend to have answers here, but rather notice what was coming up for me during each song’s moment in time.” With »Thorns«, Marxen encourages us to no longer accept such tendencies to gnaw at the wounds of our human experience, but rather root into the wild garden of our flawed and beautiful being.

Nicole has toured throughout the U.S. and opened for William Basinski, Cold Cave, and Marissa Nadler. Her previous band, Midnight Opera, was awarded “Best Group Act” from Dallas Observer in 2018.

RIYL: Chelsea Wolfe, King Woman, Emma Ruth Rundle

Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well