MARIA USBECK Streams Sophomore LP on Hype Machine - Out This Friday 8/16

MARIA USBECK Streams Sophomore LP  Listen NOW via Hype Machine ENVEJECIENDO Out This Friday, August 16 on Cascine

(Credit: Holland Brown) Early praise for Maria Usbeck + Envejeciendo: "[‘Nostalgia’ is] dramatic and disorienting and heavy on the synths. Retro textures drawn from ’80s synth-pop and ’90s tech-house are filtered through a futuristic lens." -Stereogum "('Nostalgia') undulates and shimmers like hazy morning sunlight reflecting off concentric waves, conjuring a very specific and relatable feeling that’s as warm and wistful as the song’s quite literal title implies" - Gorilla vs. Bear "elegantly leans a little heavier into club-ready synth pop… with rippling water effects, atmospheric arpeggios, and a recording of her late grandmother musing on lost love, it’s clear that she is still creating in a space that is very much her own. Keep an ear out for this one…" - Aquarium Drunkard  “Cascine continues to attract some of the most refreshing artists around the globe, and Maria Usbeck keeps the Earth spinning on its axis…[she makes] bilingual dream pop bops...musical gems” - Highsnobiety "Dreamy and restrained… striking a remarkably sober tone as she expertly tugs at the listener’s heart strings." - Remezcla "’Obscuro Obituario’ is lush, tropical” - Brooklyn Vegan Ecuador-born, NYC-based Maria Usbeck will release her stunning, bilingual sophomore album Envejeciendo on August 16th via Cascine. Ahead of its release on Friday, the record is streaming early via Hype Machine. Envejeciendo (Spanish for “aging”) is a concept album exploring the universal obsession with youth and our preoccupation with growing older, and this album follows her Caroline Polacheck (Chairlift) co-produced debut record Amparo from 2016. Told with humor and tenderness, the album is an eccentric collection of dreamlike pop songs, sung in a mix of English and Spanish. Listen to it HERE and pre-order HERE. Maria Usbeck will perform a hometown album release show in Brooklyn next month onSeptember 4th at The Sultan Room at The Turk's Inn, alongside Jackie Mendoza andEnsemble Entendu (Photay + Sam O.B.) More info and tickets can be found HERE.

(‘Envejeciendo’ Cover Art by Holland Brown - download high res HERE) The tracks on Envejeciendo are anchored in the Usbeck’s personal experiences with adulthood. After recently forcing herself out of a depressive, aging-induced slump, Usbeck was determined to have fun with the subject matter. The album is peppered with personal anecdotes and nods to her firsthand fieldwork into the aging process. Particularly moving are the samples of a recorded interview with Usbeck’s late Ecuadorian grandmother, who speaks animatedly about her girlhood suitors and imagines what her life could have been had she married someone else. It’s this tone of nostalgic joy, coexisting with curiosity for futures both impossible and unrealized, that runs throughout Envejeciendo.  For Usbeck, even cloudier subject matter like elderliness and death is rife with humor and optimism, evidenced in her buoyant brand of sunshine-dappled pop music. Flanked by drum machines and mirror-polished production, Usbeck imagines a futuristic version of retirement homes that are more like “really fun hotels,” robot caretakers, and Brave New World-esque rejuvenation drugs. Sonically, there are still ties to the Latin American textures of her childhood — the ones that informed her last album, the tropical bricolageAmparo — but here, those textures are filtered through the 80’s synth pop and early 90’s tech-house fixations of Usbeck’s teenage years. Born in Quito, Ecuador, she moved to the states at 17 to attend art school, and found herself fronting the new wave band Selebrities. But, after five years of singing in English, the polyglot decided to let her mother tongue speak. Amparo, Usbeck’s 2016 Caroline Polacheck co-produced solo debut, was a return to her Latin American roots, sung almost entirely in Spanish, written and recorded across Ecuador, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Barcelona, Lisbon, Easter Island, Costa Rica, Florida, L.A. and her home in Brooklyn.  Previous praise for Amparo: “Beautiful, Spanish-Language Debut...Maria Usbeck, formerly lead singer of the great new wave band Selebrities, does something completely different on [Amparo]’—and it’s not just swap out the old fuzzy guitars for soothing harp and quena flute.” - The FADER "You don’t even have to understand what Usbeck is singing to appreciate the depth of emotion and beauty here." - Stereogum “Maria Usbeck's timeless solo debut LP is a somewhat unexpected, subtly dazzling triumph that registers as one of the most pleasant surprises of the year. “ - Gorilla vs. Bear "Maria Usbeck has made a perfect modern indiepop record that floats effortlessly through the ether, but is anything but disposable." -KCRW “[Amparo] is full of immaculately arranged instruments... Don’t let this one slip under your radar.” - Consequence of Sound "If you don’t understand Spanish, you might feel compelled to learn it just to understand her narrative." - SPIN “...Usbeck takes elements of South American music and adds her own pop-infused touch...In combining these fleshly Latin elements with Western-sounding production, Usbeck succeeds in creating a wholly original sound.” - CRACK “Usbeck's latest track is a blissful and tropical song laden with harp strings, piano, and wooden block percussion - a gorgeous instrumental dream and the perfect bed for Usbeck's Spanish language vocal.” - The Line of Best Fit “Quito-born Usbeck sings ‘Moai Y Yo’ in her native Spanish, backed by the gentle lapping of water, sparse percussion and the eventual layering of her vocals into a moving, chanting chorus.” - Cool Hunting FOLLOW MARIA USBECK http://mariausbeck.com Instagram * Twitter * Soundcloud * Bandcamp