Mariee Sioux

Mariee Sioux
Faces in the Rocks
(September 18th, Grass Roots Record Co)

The tale of Mariee Sioux began as delicately and spiritually as her captivating song, as a small ember introduced to the universe that soon grew into a flame of hope and illumination. Her dazzling debut album, Faces in the Rocks, weaves together the poetic interpretations of the universeÕs deep truths and interconnectedness that have intrigued her since childhood. Each spin invites listeners to be the cast in MarieeÕs entrancing tale with a journey ahead that is only beginning.

The stage was set in her hometown of Nevada City, CA, a historically creative community in which artists have flourished over the ages, where Mariee intertwined the vivid verse she had been writing as a child with the life lessons she has learned as an adult for this powerful record. Her roots had been planted deep in music through the love of her mandolin-playing father, but it was not until Mariee ventured a life-changing trip to Patagonia at the age of 17 that she began to play an instrument herself. She soon perfected the spry, delicate finger picking guitar technique featured on Faces in the Rocks, a faultless accompaniment to her strong yet sweetly cooing vocals, and toured internationally with her adoring compatriots Brightblack Morning Light.

Featuring Grammy-nominee Gentle ThunderÕs enchanting sound on a redwood-carved Native American flute as well as her own famed father Gary Sobonya on mandolin, Mariee recorded Faces in May 2007 with a troupe of Nevada CityÕs talented musicians. Recorded with the intent of aligning the magnificence of the human voice with the universeÕs creative energy, each song is a stirring exploration of life. Her tales range from the profundity of friendship on the single ÒFriendboatsÓ to the yearning of self-understanding on ÒBundles,Ó each laced with fabled images and poignant verse. ÒTwo Tongues at One Time,Ó recently released on a rare 7Ó vinyl, is a sonnet-filled homage to the ancestors who traversed the wild lands of America hundreds of years ago, reminding listeners of our vital ties to our past.

Continuing the folk tradition of songwriting greats such as Joni Mitchell, Kate Wolf and Nick Drake, Faces glorifies an appreciation of the working spirit and the oneness of nature that remains timeless.
- Press Here Publicity

Nevada City-based songwriter Mariee Sioux spits piney rhymes over oaken-tuned acoustic plucking. Her twilight narratives detail encounters with ghosts, myriad woodland creatures, and her mom. But with a voice that bends around the branches with more flexibility than her fellow folk-nymphs, you couldn't pick a better guide for your night-hike. - Jennifer Maerz, SF
Weekly

Mariee Sioux was a delight, an amazingly poetic and telling lyricist, and she seemed to be the den mother of the pack, delicately plucking and strumming an acoustic with her eyes closed. Ð LA Record

As for the openers, solo-girl-with-guitar Mariee Sioux was captivating in her own odd, charming sort of way. Her stage manner was coy, her voice gorgeous and lilting, her finger-picking style nimble as she made her way through a half-hour's worth of songs that seemed to reference the entire animal kingdom Ñ buffalo, pheasants, otters, bears, you name it Ñ and went down as easy as the red wine she gulped between tunes. - Michael Alan Goldberg, Seattle Weekly

One can be forgiven for thinking of a certain milk-eyed harpist upon first encountering Mariee Sioux, another singer-songwriter from Nevada City with a knack for expansive song structures and textured wordplay. That said, it only takes a few spins of the artist's debut six-song set, A Bundled Bundle of Bundles, to register its particularity. While Sioux doesn't sound like a trained musician Ñ most of the songs are based on simple, circular chord patterns Ñ she nonetheless has a subtly commanding craft: gentle guitar lines pull at complex cascades of words until the whole affair seems a swirl (a sample from standout "Buried in Teeth": "There's trapped antennas all tangled up with these braids/ And the spin of cocoons whispers your name"). The effect is hypnotically beautiful, the kind of music you want for a sunrise drive. A couple of longer tracks ("Bundled") prove a little unwieldy, with repetitive fingerpicking weighing down the extended poems. Still, Sioux's tree-stump folk made her a shoo-in as a Brightblack Morning Light tour mate, and one imagines others will take note if she keeps spinning musical weaves as ambitious as these. -Max Goldberg, San Francisco Bay Guardian

Mariee Sioux makes me want to hibernate that deep, wooded kind of hibernation only the most wintery winter can induce. Full of folksy breath and bittersweet syrup, Sioux crafts sorrowful organic sounds and scenes of ancient history. And, though hailing from the Sierra Nevadas, there is a Smoky Mountain momentum to her acoustic hymns. Enchantingly visceral at times, Sioux's songwriting is hard edged, gorgeously poetic and, well, graphic. Take "Buried in Teeth," for example: You'd never guess by the twitter-tinged double-tracked vocals that Sioux's spinning tales of crashing molars and the gut of centuries. The result is an overwhelmingly expansive sound that, while darkened by meticulous fantasy, is uplifted with a soft woodland warble. - Anika Sabin, Willamette Weekly - SF Weekly, SF Bay Guardian, Seattle Weekly, LA Record, Willamette Weekly

http://www.grassrootsrecordco.com/news/index.html - Grass Roots Record Co