Given all we’ve endured so far in 2021, it’s easy to position Black Marble’s forthcoming album Fast Idol, out October 22 via Sacred Bones Records, as one of the more anticipated and necessary releases of the fall. The Los Angeles-based project of Chris Stewart creates the type of introspective and artful electronic-pop that propels forward a clear mindset all while assessing the ills of the day and how they influence our existence. Black Marble’s latest single, today’s “Ceiling”, musically offers a call-back to the glory days of yearning synth-pop, while also swirling around themes of memory and how our mental storage of what we’ve experienced allows us to to shape our present and future.
“Ceiling” arrives complete with a celestial lyric video, edited by Alana-Marie French.
“‘Ceiling’ is about the persistence of memory and the fear of starting to lose the plot on what’s happening,” says Stewart. “When you talk to people these days, there’s a pervasive sense that we’ve lost a sense of shared reality and yet you never hear anyone indict themselves as being responsible. So this song just deals with the paranoia of thinking like, ok, what if it’s not them it’s me? Or what if it’s not me now, but inevitably it one day will be? And does it matter? ‘In silence for the words we leave behind’ is about holding onto meaning, but not any one idea, just the hope that it persists. It’s a recitation to ward off the thought that we’ll return in another time and be unable to understand the plights of the day, or parse any of the ambiguity that exists between people.”
Look up to the stars below.