The stagnant ethereality of Mary in the Junkyard
London’s live circuit is spawning new guitar bands left, right and centre. Establishing yourself as a name in the Brixton Windmill scene before dropping any recorded music has become a tried and tested method, one that Mary in the Junkyard have executed as seamlessly as anyone. Their debut single ‘Tuesday’ earned them thousands of streams and accompanying buzz, but their sound stands out amidst that increasingly monotonous scene.
Mary in the Junkyard may have just two songs to their name, but common themes are already emerging across their lyrics and instrumentation. Their soundscapes veer between tension and release, while Clari Freeman-Taylor’s vocals are steeped in anxiety, indecision, and longing all at once. There’s a kind of spectral stagnancy to it all, a feeling captured in a lyric of their own: “The cosmos curled up in bed.”
These themes were present from the moment the band dropped their first single – ‘Tuesday’. “Widen my horizons, please,” Freeman-Taylor begins, “There’s so much I don’t know about this land.” Her soft words are accompanied by swirling finger-picking as she details alienation and depersonalisation, closing her eyes to see herself “high above the city”.
Tentative strings give way to purposeful percussion in an addictive section of the song as she shrugs, “I haven’t got used to it yet, the cosmos curled up in bed”. She swings and wavers her vocals on the word “I”, that uncertainty not only present in her words but in her delivery of them. She swings between meaning too – “I made something of myself, I was meant for something else” – echoes of uncertain regret.
The soundscapes that build around her only enhance this strange stagnancy. They’re undeniably gorgeous, but they often feel stunted, particularly in the first half of the track. They veer in and out of intensity with Freeman-Taylor’s vocalisations as if making up the noise in her head.
“I’m always waiting for it,” Freeman-Taylor continually repeats when the instrumentation comes closest to release. She can’t even finish her final utterance of the phrase, stopping at “I’m always wait…” and only gracing the final moments of the song with whispers and hums. It’s a song filled with a longing for something more, to belong and to succeed, as well as the anxieties and indecision that couple that feeling.
The band’s second single, ‘Ghost’, takes this stagnancy into more spectral realms. Featuring howling sounds and Freeman-Taylor’s characteristic vocal quivers, it only reinforces the fear of change that defines Mary in the Junkyard’s songwriting. From the song’s opening moments, fuzzy instrumentation underlies the vocalist’s “oohs”, creating a ghostly quality true to its name.
We find Freeman-Taylor in the kitchen, itching for rainy-day tales by candlelight. She separates herself from the pretty people surrounding her and from the tales she hopes to hear, but she also begs for change. “I’ve been howling at you,” she sings in the song’s chorus, “But you see right through it, you pass right through.”
As the song reaches its bridge, Freeman-Taylor’s vocals are drenched in longing, and the percussion kicks in as she declares, “Oh, so talk to me, I’m scared of change babe”. It’s woeful but it’s also hopeful, as she finds herself moving away from her old ways, taking her shoes off to dance in the living room.
There’s an addictive quality to both glimpses at Mary in the Junkyard that we’ve received so far, in the way they veer between tension and release, between trepidation and full-blown passion. It’s at once spectral and stagnant, desperate to shake off the anxieties that halt change, desperate to capture the cosmos from the comforts of your duvet.
As their instrumentation bends around those ever-changing themes, it’s enough to give you emotional motion sickness, but still, you can’t help but hit the repeat button.
