Today, psych-folk singer-songwriter Mariee Siou shares the urgent, healing EP Circle of Signs out everywhere now. Alongside the full collection, Siou shares "Végre Vissza" out now, which explores the imbalances that exist within humanity and the planet, and channels this layered grief into power. Plus, the prolific singer-songwriter will hit the road this May across the West Coast with support from Kacey Johansing and Angelica Rockne on select dates. See a full list of dates below with additional dates added and get tickets here.
The highly anticipated EP, Circle of Signs, explores the grief that comes with the current, various political, cultural and environmental disasters. Over four poignant tracks, Siou reckons with living within a system that deepens inequality and accelerates the global climate emergency and through lyrics and song, offers a path toward healing and attempts to maintain hope of a brighter future.
Siou says the collection of songs is, "an expression of and an invitation to the grief and perplexing questions that must necessarily be faced in acknowledgment of our true selves in the face of our current catastrophic, cultural, political and environmental inheritances—grief as the portal into healing, and which is itself a subversive process in an industrial-capitalist-consumerist climate in which to love oneself is itself an act of subversion."
Through the EP, Siou speaks directly to the dire need in the modern world for us to reconnect with older and more honest ways of relating to ourselves; to our human and nonhuman kin; to the natural environmental cycles which sustain us and our extended Earth-family; and to the cultures, songs and lives that lie at the interface between all of these interwoven realities.
Circle of Signs was recorded in the Sierra Nevada Foothills in the spring of 2022 and was engineered by Oz Fritz (Tom Waits Mule Variations, Blood Money) and produced by Siou. The recordings on this EP are built around Mariee’s signature acoustic fingerpicking and voice, but with the introduction of soprano saxophone and various winds played by virtuoso Patrick McGee—creating a windscape: horns and flutes are interlaced with strong percussion, voice and guitars, creating space and cushioning for Mariee’s eco-mystic poetry to weave through and be given lift by.
Out today, Végre Vissa (Finally Return roughly in Hungarian) examines the extreme imbalances that exist in within humanity and Earth, and explores what it means to regulate this imbalance. Siou says, "In a society that is so wickedly out of balance with so much emphasis on masculine qualities, it speaks to bringing back in qualities of the feminine."
Siou continues, "It speaks to some of the horrors I felt after hearing that some locals are hired to set the rainforest on fire in the Amazon. How could we set fire to the lungs of the future generations?" After hearing water could capture grief well, Siou recalls, "I began writing this song after a huge 'grief purge' where I cried heavily into a bowl of water. I then poured the 'charged' water into a Datura plant I was growing on the deck that summer and the next morning this song began to come as I sat under it doing my morning writing. I truly feel like this song was passed to me from the Datura spirit who helped metabolize the grief and turn it into this expression."
The release of the full project follows the previously shared, gentle title track, "Circle Of Signs" and the preceding first taste of the project, "Snake Hoop." The title track is a gentle, layered love letter to the artist's home state of California that address the catastrophic climate crisis and imagines a brighter future. Brooklyn Vegan, who debuted the single, calls it "delicate, atmospheric folk song with layers of saxophone. Written over the course of a few years, and half in the wake of the historic Sonoma fire in 2017, the title track out today reflects on the ongoing climate disaster–from floods to droughts to fires–that continuously plague many parts of the world including Siou's home state of California.
In an interview with Brooklyn Vegan, Siou says, "This song is a prayer that begs us to heed these warnings from the earth body and reflect on indigenous prophecies from different nations around the world, which speak of the time of The Great Shift." Siou ponders humanity's fast-paced current path, filled with consumption, capitalism and technology, that only further ravages the planet. She continues,"A time when we will be given two paths to walk as human beings, where we must choose whether we continue on the path of acceleration, disconnection and technology, or take the other path back into the right relationship with the earth once again." Delving into the rich lyrical content, Siou says, "The lyrics ask if we will ever humble ourselves and learn from our mistakes as a species, whose human superiority complex is causing change and destruction to our planetary home at a pace that is beyond comprehension."
"I had just left Sonoma hours before the fires broke out." Siou recalls of the 2017 wildfires that she had narrowly escaped and became inspiration for the track. "I had been playing a concert there and spooky 70 mph wind gusts were causing the power to go on and off at the outdoor venue. Seeing footage the next day of where we had been the night before was truly haunting, and was when I began parts of the lyrics." Siou describes the feeling the track elicits as, "sparse yet urgent and mournful, like someone singing out for the rain in a dire time amongst flames." She continues, "There are layers of soprano saxophone behind most of the track played by virtuoso Patrick McGee, which carries the song with sweeping harmonies and padded atmosphere as if winds were clearing smoky air."
The creation of the track progressed when more deadly fires claimed lives and homes in California. Siou says, "More of the words came together the next year when, just an hour from where I was living, the nightmarish fire of Paradise broke out and burned, killing 85 people and destroying over 13k homes. The disaster filled the air with a smoke so thick it was almost purple, and no one could go outside for days." It was this horrifying time that encouraged Siou to funnel her profound grief into song.
The track's accompanying video, directed by Samantha Shay, captures the climate grief and hopelessness evoked in the song. Shay says, "Circle of Signs is a piece about the wildfires rampaging through California, but so much more. It is about climate grief, the hopeless situation capitalism and colonialism has left the planet and youth to take on."
"Snake Hoop" was born out of an ayahuasca ceremony that led the artist to discover more of herself and a new understanding of life and death. During the ceremony, Siou explains, "I experienced walking the scales of the ouroboros and faced my own death. I felt and saw all the energy of creation as endless and eternal cycles and was overcome with a deep reassurance in that knowing. It seemed my spirit was smiling at the beauty and necessity of death for the existence of life, and had aligned with the light of the stars. After the ceremony, I went out into the early dawn, in the forest of the Sierra foothills, and began humming this melody in the breaking of a new day."
Delving into the sonic qualities of the track, Siou continues, "The song carries a cyclical, rhythmic sound that almost feels like a chant through a kind of ethereal, mythic-folk-rock, that brings in soft lilting qualities like flutes and tinkling piano played by Patrick Mcgee, that ebb and flow while high harmonies in the chorus dance through the hypnotic melody."
Lyrically, the track paints a vivid picture of both the more recent atrocities of racism in America, and its heinous history. Siou explains, "While the lyrics were written while George Floyd protests were raging around the world (“Been acquainted with apparitions in the night, hoods sewn from the gaunt waving stripes”), the track reflects on America’s haunting foundation of racism and slavery, the continued brutality to people of color in America today, and the cycles of violence and destruction also found within creation and thus humankind as well."
Since Siou's official, captivating debut album Face in The Rocks in 2007, the artist has continually captured the attention of several leading tastemakers. BrooklynVegan wrote about the debut, "It's a delicate, flute-filled psychedelic folk album with finger picked guitar and airy vocals recalling the work of rediscovered '60s/'70s artists like Vashti Bunyan and Linda Perhacs." They added about her 2012 effort Grief In Exile, "'Grief In Exile' will almost definitely appeal to fans of Mazzy Star and Joanna Newsom (and Marissa Nadler), and it's as consistently strong as just about anything she's done prior."
Mariee Siou was raised on a farm in the Sierra Nevada foothills in the Yuba River watershed in Northern California. Born to a father in a bluegrass band, Siou was always surrounded by music and taught herself to play the guitar at 18 while volunteering at a school for Mapuche children in Patagonia. In 2007, she released her first studio album, Faces in the Rocks, on which she collaborated with Native American flautist Gentle Thunder and which achieved a dedicated cult following that would propel her career to this day. She began touring Europe, as well as North America, after being invited to open for the psych jam band Bright Black Morning Light on their nationwide tour that year, and later toured with Hope Sandoval, Mazzy Star in 2013 and extensively toured Europe and the US headlining and has opened for other acclaimed artists such as Joanna Newsom, Buffy Sainte Marie, Frank Black, and Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy.
PopMatters lauded about the commanding singer-songwriter, "[Siou is] constantly rising to the challenge of making a holistically moving record." They continue, "Surface-level descriptions fall especially short with Mariee Siou, whose poetry is as much about performance as it is about music and lyrics. To listen to 'Grief in Exile' is to dream a lucid dream." Similarly, Bandcamp praised her poetic talent, "The power of Siou’s songs stems largely from her poetic know-how—glimmering prose uplifted by Siou’s multi-hued falsetto, and backed by gentle acoustic guitar."
Now, in 2023, Siou is ready to push boundaries yet again and expand her profound sonic world, building on nearly two decades of her meaningful, momentous artistry. The prolific singer-songwriter will perform live along the West Coast this May, including in Los Angeles, CA, Seattle, WA and in Portland, OR, featuring support from Kacey Johansing and Angelica Rockne on several dates. Grab tickets now here, see a full list of dates below including new dates added in California and the Juan de Fuca Festival in Port Angeles, WA on May 28.
Circle of Signs, the riveting, self-produced EP by Mariee Siou is out everywhere now. See Siou live this May along the West Coast with tickets available now here. Connect with Mariee Siou on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube and stay tuned for more from the psych-folk musician.
Watch "Circle of Signs" (Official Music Video) | Listen Listen: "Snake Hoop" | Watch | 
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