by David Wilikofsky
Macie Stewart doesn’t consider Mouth Full of Glass a quarantine record, but you might not know it from listening. After years of collaborations with other artists as a bandmate or an arranger, Stewart found herself at a crosswords: she no longer understood her own musical voice. She started work on her debut solo album a year before COVID, but finishing the album during quarantine became important “because I had to spend the most time with the person I had been avoiding: myself.” The results speak for themselves; Mouth Full of Glass is a deeply personal chamber pop opus that feels both timely and timeless.
Introspection has been a constant theme of the past eighteen months; it’s just come with the territory. Mouth Full of Glass feels like a quarantine record because it’s so focused on illuminating Stewart’s inner world. Solitude is omnipresent; Stewart stares straight at the wall or watches snow fall to ground outside her window. Even when it’s not explicit, many songs sound like late night monologues. Stewart contemplates failed relationships and imagined futures; she thinks about a murdered child and the life he might have led. They’re the kind of thoughts that run through your mind as you lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and waiting for sleep.
While the songwriting is uniformly strong, the album shines in its arrangements. Stewart has a deft hand, seemingly always able to tease out the emotional core of her songs through composition. On opener “Finally”, strings that have pulsed beneath the surface from the tracks opening moments burst forth as Stewart sings “Finally I learn to tell the truth to myself,” the instrumental flourish perfectly timed to accentuate the breakthrough of the lyrics. While Stewart’s instrumentals often build towards these sorts of climaxes, she also knows when to pull back, as on “What Will I Do.” Stewart mourns the loss of a relationship in the song, pausing after each verse as if to collect her thoughts; these pauses slowly grow in duration, eventually transforming into a whirring void of despair and loneliness that we stare down along with her.
Album closer “Wash It Away” serves as a reset from the emotional catharsis that proceeds it. “I must admit I’m through with it / And wash it away” sings Stewart as the instrumentals began to slowly rise above her voice, eventually obscuring them completely. All the indecision, loneliness and longing she’s aired is let go, leaving behind a chance to start anew. Stewart may have started out this project unsure of herself, but the fruits of her labor sound as self-assured as any record you’ll hear this year. Now that she’s let go of these insecurities and rediscovered her voice, the sky’s the limit.