The trajectory of HTRK’s music was irrevocably altered by the death of bassist Sean Stewart after the group’s first album. Each subsequent release was a step in the grieving process, as vocalist Jonnine Standish and guitarist Nigel Yang chose to leave gaps in their recordings where Stewart’s low end should be. When Standish finally picked up the bass, she lit a candle and called upon his spirit to ask permission. On her new solo album, Maritz, she performs a similar spiritual reunion with her late mother, who passed away when Standish was only 21. The album is titled after her mother’s maiden name, which she calls “the most haunted word I know.” Maritz is less a eulogy for Standish’s mother than a voicemail message to her, a brief and playful one-sided conversation that nonetheless communicates loss and longing.
With eight songs in only 18 minutes, Maritz sounds like Standish snuck into a haunted house with a four-track and quickly made do with what she found there. Her arrangements feature a broken metronome, a plastic recorder, and a scavenged glockenspiel, and she is frequently interrupted by birds squawking, dogs barking, and sirens blaring. Despite the album’s tragic theme, this ad hoc approach lends the music a lighthearted air. Opener “I Put a Little Thing in Your Pocket” assures us, “There is no such thing as being haunted/Those of us who walk the earth are not cursed.” Instead, Standish confronts death with liveliness, using comedy to combat tragedy. On “Tea for Two (Boo),” two ghosts named Joe and Stephanie have tea in a graveyard: “Don’t interrupt them,” she warns, “or they might interrupt… Boo!”
While HTRK’s 2021 album Rhinestones stripped their songs bare by trading in layers of fuzz for sparkling acoustic guitar, Maritz leaves only skeletons. Like Devendra Banhart’s Oh Me Oh My…, the album sounds like a demo that has been sitting in a cobwebbed attic. “There is something quite generous about sharing an idea before it is overthought,” Standish explained in an interview. “Here’s where I’m at with this idea, how about you take it over?” At times, she invites us to participate directly: “I Put a Little Thing in Your Pocket” is one fragment of a perfect pop song that can be completed simply by pressing repeat. As with the best folk music, other songs share universal sentiments through melodies simple enough to be sung by anyone. On “Portrait,” Standish croons, “I don’t know, can you sing the song back to me?/In the hope that you’ll hear my prayer/Before you know it you can hear the words everywhere,” an open invitation to take the song and make it your own.
At times, the colder, more detached pose of early HTRK clashes with the charming tone of Standish’s new material. On “There’s Nothing There” and “Blissfully Unaware (of You),” Standish adds reverb and echo to her vocals, as if she isn’t quite convinced yet that she’s making a folk record. As a whole, though, Maritz is a beguiling release, with memorable songs stretched across it like trinkets in a charm bracelet. You’ll want to carry it around with you: a keepsake that you can fit in your pocket.
