Seattle-based singer-songwriter and bass player Abbey Blackwell might be best known as part of Canadian indie pop outfit Alvvays, and has recorded with artists ranging from Cassandra Jenkins, Shana Cleveland and Valley Maker. But in recent years she has begun pursuing solo work too, with her debut full-length album, My Maze, coming soon via Ruination Records. Blackwell’s previous solo release, 2021 EP Other Lives, offered re-imaginings of work from the likes of David Whyte, Raymond Carver and Dylan Thomas. Simple guitar and vocal arrangements which tapped into the character and emotion of the source material, channelling a careful, often melancholic sound.
My Maze might be less direct in its literary allusions, but the influence of poetry and short fiction is clearly apparent. As though Abbey Blackwell has graduated beyond the crutch of those other lives, instead applying the techniques learnt there to form stories of her own. Each song a Carver-esque vignette which drops the listener into the midst of a situation, often pulling them out before a clear end. Snapshots into what are often troubled lives as a way in which to reflect ourselves. “[Songwriting] can be such a narcissistic thing to do,” Blackwell explains. “[So] I tried to write about other people.”
What these other people offer is a view into different ways of living. Be it the reckless character at the centre of ‘The Thief’, a song which picks at a tangled knot of self-destructive and self-preserving tendencies, or the dubious security of co-dependent relationships in ‘Go Ahead Girl, Go’. Each vignette is another possibility, a direction to be followed or rejected, branching paths soon stacking into the maze of the album’s title. Blackwell asks the listener to confront the implications of each, thus leading them through the labyrinth.
Today sees the release of ‘Meet Me’, the final single before the album’s release next week. A song which drops the audience into the conflicted mind of a character, that late-night push and pull between exhausted and loneliness. “Drained by conversation but unable to be alone,” as the song opens, “Drawn to edges waiting for a moment to go home.” With a subtle acoustic rhythm and wavering sax from Neil Welch, Blackwell brings to life the tender, tenuous experience, where tiredness brings a certain desperation, an almost childlike willingness for the situation to resolve.
Meet me by the back door
Wait and catch the moon
Don’t leave me all alone
I’ll be there soon
