“A voice that plays as both a plea and a prayer, looking for a way to move beyond present suffering or else come to understand the purpose of the pain in order to better withstand it.” So we wrote of ‘Votive’, a single from Slake‘s new full-length Let’s Get Married, back in April, and the description could extend to the album as a whole. Out now via Cherub Dream Records, the full-length sees frontperson Mary Claire build their own genre—dubbed something the label have ‘lesbian doom folk’—around their strikingly evocative, nuanced vocal style. “Like a sword pulled from the sea” as the label continue, “a voice […] that exists in the realm of ancient lore, forbidden love, and quenched thirst.”
Which is not to say Slake is an entirely solo endeavour. Single ‘Bonecollector’ represented “both a window into the singular vision of the Californian artist and an embodiment of the collaborative spirit which brings their work to life,” we wrote in a preview, showing off the work of musicians Bridge Gamble (bass), Ryan Albert (additional guitar), Lil Spakoski (synth/theremin), Oona Albertson (drums) and Maya Bon (additional vocals) as well as a whole crew of directors, editors, camera crew and performers on the accompanying video. But it is Claire’s vocals to which all of these elements are in service, something apparent from opener ‘Bauhaus the Dog’, a slow-building song where the delivery is at once haunting and cathartic.
You know I think Bauhaus can hear me thinking about him,
he’s sending all his friends to do his sleuthing.
Cause when I’m porchin’, stoop-sittin’ all alone
the dogs that cross my path are darker than
obsidian.
The rest of the album unfolds in this manner, walking a porous line between sincere emotion and something more foreboding, as though each moment holds both intrinsic beauty and its own latent dread. Take the striking details of songs like ‘Go Fish’ (“eating dinner that’s wrapped up like a present / opening fish bones all folded in parchment) and ‘Big Gray Marbles’ (“Open mouth / I’m looking in / Yours is different than his / you’ve got bright pink, blood-filled skin”). Or the way songs like ‘Back and Forth’ provide heartbreaking tenderness while upending the superficial epiphanies so common in confessional art. “Telling them that I / don’t know if I / can do this much longer / Whatever this in that statement meant,” Claire sings on the latter, before describing the moment of silence before the sister answers. “When you open your heart to the world it opens itself right back up to you.” Yet, unlike the Hollywood version of such a scene, the moment continues beyond this nugget of wisdom. “It’s not what I wanted to hear / because that’s something that I already knew that I knew,” Claire continues. “Isn’t it so unfortunate that we always gotta be the ones to make the first move?”
Coming near the end of the record, ‘1026’ is perhaps a standout. A perfect example of how Slake manages to transform an otherwise mundane moment into something sacred. Or rather, restore the sacredness latent in every moment to its full luster. And by sacred, we mean something beautiful, yes, but also serious, daunting, even scary. Reflecting on both the past and present via everything from framed photos and accumulated possessions to strange dreams, ‘1026’ treats the present as a flat plane facing in two directions. Look one way and we see everything which makes us who we are, look the other for something even more terrifying.
I’ve got this framed picture of us three – my grandma with my name, my daddy, and me.
In it I am a few hours old
my first day in the world.
The longer I look at it the worse it gets, I own this image that reverses death.
Well that Virgin Mary statue looks just like my mom, I guess that makes me her son –
I didn’t mean that at all.
Let’s Get Married is out now via Cherub Dream Records and available from the Slake Bandcamp page.
