The Thinnest Line To Hang You By

Maribou State featuring Holly Walker “Steal”

At this point in time it’s pretty standard to mix R&B-inflected vocals with cool electronic textures, but even still, there’s a warmth and richness to Holly Walker’s voice that contrasts with the tone of this Maribou State track that it almost seems wrong. The music isn’t too far off from what you might expect from, say, Four Tet or Jamie xx, but whereas vocals kinda just float around in their mixes, Walker’s voice is so foregrounded that everything else seems slightly blurry most of the time, like it’s a musical form of rack focus. It really works for the song – she’s expressing a lot of guilt and regret, and she seems so close that her words and feelings can’t be easily tuned out.

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