MAITA

GENRE: rock/folk LABEL: Kill Rock Stars

Dear Portland, Oregon… you are no stranger to lyrically cutting and icon allotted artists at your disposal. But as of 2017, you have a new artist making a name for herself while keeping the dream of Portland music trapped within her big comforting hug. MAITA, with core member and songwriter Maria Maita-Keppeler, first released an EP in 2017 titled, Waterbearer. After that, she was quickly picked up by Portland profit makers, Kill Rock Stars. Her first full length album, Best Wishes, was one of my personal favorite albums from 2020. As an artist who started in indie folk roots, she was used to playing as a solo artist. But the more she wrote, MAITA morphed into a high dynamic and cathartic sounding group, adding Mathew Zeltzer, Cooper Trail, and Nevada Sowle. I Just Want To Be Wild For You, MAITA’s second full length release from Kill Rock Stars, continues on the path of personal storytelling of regretful disappointments and unmatched love in the eyes of someone who feels lonely. 

The opening track “Loneliness” starts the album on a self-reflective and exhausted story of time spent in Kyoto, Japan. Having Japanese roots, Maria finished college with a degree in traditional Japanese woodblock printmaking. In 2013, she spent 6 weeks alone in Kyoto receiving private woodblock printmaking classes. In that time of solitude, Maria learned first hand what it means to be lonely in another country (only depicted up to this point by Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray). “Loneliness” perfectly describes the feeling of catching your reflection in a shop window and seeing how pissed you look at the fact that you feel lonely in such a beautiful city. As the closest thing that MAITA has released that could be considered dream pop, “Loneliness” starts the album with an atmospheric daydream sound that strays from the normal sound of the group.  

“Pastel Concrete” showcases what makes MAITA’s songwriting so absorbing. With her long winded and melodic phrases leading to short, catchy choruses bathed in 90’s crunch guitar style chords, poignant and rhythmic drumming, and fingerpicking electric guitar, MAITA can sing a song about a broken heart caused by a distant romance and make you want to dance to it. 

There are a lot more tracks that use thrashing guitars than the previous album; asking the question who does MAITA want to be wild for? Tracks like “You Sure Can Kill a Sunday Part I” have the flashing guitar work right out of the gate, with fuzz filled bar chords and dueling staccato guitar notes. Songs like “Road Song” and “Honey, Have I Lost It All” save the loudness for the end, almost in a strategic and manipulative way to keep listeners emotionally overwhelmed that they feel the sudden need to punch dance out all of their pent up feelings. So who is going wild at these points in time? Is it the band, the listener, or does it go deeper into the world of Maria?

Closing off the album, the song “Wild For You” is a look at the role of women in a marriage, especially in the modern day concept of a legally binding relationship. Maria takes reference from her life to try to piece together a tale of a loveless marriage. She sings “And when I am gone you stray/And when you are here you are nothing”. Going wild can mean a number of things. It can be a reactionary to what can be seen as oppressive, or it can be finding youthfulness again when there is nothing left. With dynamic swells of strings and the driving rhythm of the drums and Maria’s words, “Wild For You”, pushes us to think about who makes us feel like going wild, and, to that point, is it worth it?

When listening to Maria’s lyrics, it is hard to imagine how she can make this beautiful cluster of elongated phrases into a melody that is enjoyable to listen to. But Maria is well versed in making the words work for her. Her intimate lyrics are chalked up with specific and intricate details that can only come from her personalized artistic thought process. Coming from indie-folk roots, Maria is duty-bound by her need to tell a story. Whether these are stories of love in turmoil or the mundane feeling of killing a Sunday with someone other than your own thoughts, MAITA’s charm of narrating is key to their draw. Stories are only as good as the one acting as the storyteller. In her own style of playing, MAITA proves time and time again that she is one hell of a storyteller with a lot left to be said.

By: Shea Roney

MAITA information:

https://maita.bandcamp.com/merch