At a 2021 virtual showcase hosted by Toronto's Long Winter festival, poolblood's Maryam Said contributed a video of themselves playing an original song titled "my little room." As Said gently strummed and intoned, the camera wandered around their bedroom, illuminating the decorations and possessions that turned this ordinary space into a sanctum. The song itself expressed a tentative wish: that the time Said spent alone within the walls of their room — introspecting, making art, self-soothing and self-building — would translate, somehow, to a life of fulfillment beyond them.
On that recording, Said sounds resigned to the unlikelihood of their wish coming true. "I've been waiting a quarter of a century / And now I'm living in a memory," they sing, caught in a loop of imagined futures destined to slip into the romantic past. Yet the version of "my little room" that closes poolblood's debut album, mole, realizes its telos; instead of reaching outward, fumbling for something vaguely defined, it satisfies its own yearning for connection by bringing collaborators into the fold. Said's voice and guitar are buoyed by production flourishes from Louie and Nick Short, cello from Eliza Niemi, flute from Victoria Bury, horns from Aaron Hutchinson, and additional guitar from Christian Lee Hutson. When the arrangement swells with these accompaniments, it's as if the roof has flown off, all those collected possessions lifting into the clouds — that little room no longer separate from the world but suspended among it.
While mole ends on this note of communion, the album opposes linear narratives that move neatly toward resolution. Said explores the reparation and dissolution of relationships with a refreshing emphasis on platonic connections, cycling between moments of fissure and delight. The country-inflected "shabby" flutters in celebration of friendship that makes you want to be better, while follow-up "twinkie" contains vignettes of loneliness belied by the rush of Shamir's jangly power pop production: "I went to the corner store to feel something that night." "Voyager" recounts a relationship on the rocks, trudging through dense guitar fuzz to arrive at a revelation: "And as I hailed the bus for the last time / I set you free." That sense of lightness lasts for an instant before the distortion of "null" takes over and Said's turbid, despondent melodies reflect on two people drifting further and further apart.
poolblood's sonic eclecticism makes mole an indie rock marvel. Their last project, 2019's Yummy EP, displayed a penchant for dreamy pop punk with occasional streaks of noise and grunge. Those darker sensibilities come through on mole's self-produced interlude "beam," which drones and roils like a yawning void, expanding the emotional palette of the album and filling out the atmosphere that surrounds its more insular tracks. Nonetheless, most of mole twinkles with searching folk that draws pieces from Nick Drake and Joanna Newsom, both of whom Said has cited as influences. "wfy" sits in that lineage with its baroque instrumental layering; a horn rumbles beneath the surface before swaying violin and wobbling plucks of cello guide the song to its crescendo, where it merges with a choir made up of Said, Niemi, Bury, Louie Short, and Dorothea Paas.
Even during the album's grandest moments, the shaggy mixing and Said's tranquil vocals maintain a homespun intimacy. Like "my little room," "sorry" was previously released in a different form. On Yummy, Said shouts the song's lyrics over choppy drums and a storm of bristly guitar, as if seeking to purge themselves of contempt. mole's version is stripped back, slowed down so its apologies register as deeply sincere, a result of time spent reflecting. If relationships require us to keep retracing certain moments, confronting certain faults and wishing for certain outcomes, mole illustrates how we can do that gracefully — with just a little more tenderness each time around.
(Next Door)On that recording, Said sounds resigned to the unlikelihood of their wish coming true. "I've been waiting a quarter of a century / And now I'm living in a memory," they sing, caught in a loop of imagined futures destined to slip into the romantic past. Yet the version of "my little room" that closes poolblood's debut album, mole, realizes its telos; instead of reaching outward, fumbling for something vaguely defined, it satisfies its own yearning for connection by bringing collaborators into the fold. Said's voice and guitar are buoyed by production flourishes from Louie and Nick Short, cello from Eliza Niemi, flute from Victoria Bury, horns from Aaron Hutchinson, and additional guitar from Christian Lee Hutson. When the arrangement swells with these accompaniments, it's as if the roof has flown off, all those collected possessions lifting into the clouds — that little room no longer separate from the world but suspended among it.
While mole ends on this note of communion, the album opposes linear narratives that move neatly toward resolution. Said explores the reparation and dissolution of relationships with a refreshing emphasis on platonic connections, cycling between moments of fissure and delight. The country-inflected "shabby" flutters in celebration of friendship that makes you want to be better, while follow-up "twinkie" contains vignettes of loneliness belied by the rush of Shamir's jangly power pop production: "I went to the corner store to feel something that night." "Voyager" recounts a relationship on the rocks, trudging through dense guitar fuzz to arrive at a revelation: "And as I hailed the bus for the last time / I set you free." That sense of lightness lasts for an instant before the distortion of "null" takes over and Said's turbid, despondent melodies reflect on two people drifting further and further apart.
poolblood's sonic eclecticism makes mole an indie rock marvel. Their last project, 2019's Yummy EP, displayed a penchant for dreamy pop punk with occasional streaks of noise and grunge. Those darker sensibilities come through on mole's self-produced interlude "beam," which drones and roils like a yawning void, expanding the emotional palette of the album and filling out the atmosphere that surrounds its more insular tracks. Nonetheless, most of mole twinkles with searching folk that draws pieces from Nick Drake and Joanna Newsom, both of whom Said has cited as influences. "wfy" sits in that lineage with its baroque instrumental layering; a horn rumbles beneath the surface before swaying violin and wobbling plucks of cello guide the song to its crescendo, where it merges with a choir made up of Said, Niemi, Bury, Louie Short, and Dorothea Paas.
Even during the album's grandest moments, the shaggy mixing and Said's tranquil vocals maintain a homespun intimacy. Like "my little room," "sorry" was previously released in a different form. On Yummy, Said shouts the song's lyrics over choppy drums and a storm of bristly guitar, as if seeking to purge themselves of contempt. mole's version is stripped back, slowed down so its apologies register as deeply sincere, a result of time spent reflecting. If relationships require us to keep retracing certain moments, confronting certain faults and wishing for certain outcomes, mole illustrates how we can do that gracefully — with just a little more tenderness each time around.