Maple Glider aka Australian songwriter Tori Zietsch has announced her debut album: it’s called To Enjoy is the Only Thing and comes out on June 25 via Partisan. It’s an intriguing album title given the melancholy nature of the tracks we’ve heard so far, including last month’s “Good Thing” and today’s new offering “Swimming”. Like the previous single, “Swimming” was written while in London and finds Maple Glider meditating on impending heartbreak, as she explains:
“This was meant to be a love song, but by the time I finished it, it kind of predetermined a break-up. I’d been experiencing some of the most beautiful places I’d ever been in, and falling out of love was very confusing. I was trying to force myself to be happy and in love, but I was far from home, and really lonely. It made sense to record the song after the break-up. I kind of felt like I was able to handle the sincerity of it then.”
With cobwebs of acoustic framing her plaintive voice, “Swimming” immediately ensnares us in its sticky emotionality. Drawing us right into her memories and regrets – “I said I would marry you / if I could get a passport too” – Maple Glider quietly uncoils herself from a position of tension she hadn’t realised she was in. We follow her thoughts through caverns of love, where the feelings are still plainly there – but clearly disintergrating, with no shortage of pain as they do. The graceful way Maple Glider presents events on “Swimming” makes us feel like we’re watching one final slow dance between the doomed couple, twirling between the words they once shared, before they eventually part.
The video for “Swimming” was directed by Bridgette Winten and you can watch it below.
Maple Glider’s debut album To Enjoy is the Only Thing comes out on June 25 via Partisan (pre-order/save). Make sure to follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
