Black Marble signs to Ghostly

Black Marble have signed with Ghostly International, for their forthcoming release 'It’s Immaterial,

Black Marble, the synth-wave project of LA-based Chris Stewart, has announced the band’s second full-length album, It’s Immaterial out September 30th on Ghostly International. Black Marble has also shared the first track “Iron Lung.”

It’s Immaterial follows up their EP Weight Against the Door (Hardly Art). Still featuring Chris Stewart at the helm along with select collaborators as supplementation, the project’s recent shift in locale from East Coast to West Coast lends a great deal to the overall feel of the new album: the light and dark elements of shadows, the salt and sting of evening’s high tide sea spray, a beautiful thing left on a shelf too high to maintain. The general mood is that of creating something new, but going back in time to do it. Like attempting to flesh out a song that you woke up humming but can’t find because it doesn’t exist yet.

With both early releases the band followed a familiar path stomped down in the late 70’s and early 80’s by a kindred assemblage of synth acts whose gauzy tape sounds and DIY ethics paved the way for other likeminded artists. Pulling from the handmade approach of late 70’s synth wave pioneers like Silicon Teens, Iron Curtain, Lives of Angels, and Solid Space, Black Marble dialed in on a clear understanding of its own specific sound, which has since evolved. Channeling Robert Palmer’s early Island years, vocals have been pushed forward.

“It’s a lot of psychic turmoil about time, place, and the dissatisfaction that comes with being young and not having control over place, or being old and not having control over time,” Stewart says about the album. “The record is filled with characters trying to convince themselves, and others, to change or to see things differently or to come along with them somewhere. It’s that moment of wanting between knowing and doing but frozen in time.”

Black Marble – It’s Immaterial
(September 30th – Ghostly)

01. Interdiction
02. Iron Lung
03. It’s Conditional
04. Woods
05. A Million Billion Star
06. Missing Sibling
07. Frisk
08. Golden Heart
09. Self Guided Tours
10. Portland U
11. Collene

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