Mary Middlefield shares new single ‘Heart's Desire’
Mary Middlefield | Photo by Valeria Shashenok
PRAISE FOR MARY MIDDLEFIELD:
"Simple yet enormously endearing, ‘Band-Aid’ finds this young Swiss songwriter moving with incredible confidence."
- Clash
"Knitting together pastoral indie folk and winsome pop melodies with hints of knotted ‘90s indie rock"
- Under the Radar
"Quietly painful, capturing a mood of regret through gorgeous inflection and gentle writing"
- The Line of Best Fit
"awe-inspiring creations, resembling the sounds of the wilderness."
- Wonderland
Today, Swiss songwriter Mary Middlefield returns with a brand new single titled ‘Heart's Desire’, alongside its striking accompanying live music video. Her newest release is introspective and vulnerable, delicately depicting a Stockholm syndrome-like experience of a manipulative relationship.
The track follows Middlefield's recent singles ‘Sexless’ and ‘Atlantis’, which arrived last month as a vulnerable and empowering first look at her first material since the arrival of her debut album, Thank You Alexander, which was released earlier this year. The album was met with great acclaim. Shared by the likes of Clash, Notion, and The Line of Best Fit, and across a wide array of Swiss media such as Schweizer Illustrierte, Sunrise Starzone, and SRF3. Middlefield was named “SRF3 Best Talent” in the month of April, which allowed her to blossom further. In her first summer as an artist in the industry she embarked on her first festival tour, playing renowned festivals such as Montreux Jazz Festival and Winterthurer Musikfestwochen.
On ‘Heart's Desire’ Mary Middlefield brings her gentle ghostly vocals and emotive cinematic instrumentation to some of the deepest, personal and most painful corners of her autobiographical songwriting. The single comes hand in hand with a live music video that visualizes the raw exposed feel of the song.
Speaking about the single's themes, Middlefield says: "It’s a song about statutory rape and knowingly falling for someone who’s manipulating you and inappropriately older than you. It’s not a love song and it shouldn’t be seen that way. As young women, we’re often preyed on by people with authority who not only use toxic methods to get the results they’d like, but also project their desires, whether sexual, professional or both. I really wanted to put that in a song, i.e, how it feels to live through the abuse and experience it first hand. I don’t want to give too much of my personal experience away: most of it is already in the song anyway."
A former student of classical violin, 22 year-old Mary Middlefield now wields high drama, desire, and vulnerability as keys to making meaning in a complicated universe, where love and abuse coincide. Her roomy, stream-of-consciousness songs veer between a keening pop-punk fueled intensity and a lovely folk-inspired softness, inspired by the likes of Elliott Smith, Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, as well as more recent artists like Claud, Jockstrap and The Japanese House.
Her story as a singer-songwriter began three years ago with a broken heart and a bruised ego. “He dumped me in the middle of the day while I was carrying his groceries,” she says. With nothing to lose, she figured it was the perfect time to experiment. She picked up the guitar, and taught herself chords and riffs from Radiohead’s songbook. “I hope I’ll get their discography down to a T one day,” she says. From there, piece by piece and note by note, she began stitching herself back together, turning her pain into something generative, fortifying. Through song, she began to reclaim everything she’d lost in that relationship and its subsequent dissolution.
Mary Middlefield's latest music is a purging of emotion, one that’s allowing her to move forward with a clear mind and a clean palette. But for now, this is music for the people who are stuck, scorned and lonely. Middlefield invites you to suffer and yearn and scream alongside her.
Stay tuned for more new music from Mary Middlefield, coming soon.
PREVIOUS RELEASES:
Listen/watch & share: Mary Middlefield - ‘Atlantis’
Stream / YouTube
Listen/watch & share: Mary Middlefield - ‘Sexless’
Stream / YouTube
Listen/purchase & share: Mary Middlefield - Thank You Alexander LP
Spotify / Apple Music / Bandcamp
Watch & share: Mary Middlefield - TYA Singles
‘Band Aid‘ / ‘Two Thousand One‘ / ‘This One's For You‘ / ‘Case Closed‘
