A.C. Marias
One Of Our Girls
Boomkat Product Review:
Angela Conway & Bruce Gilbert’s sole A.C.Marias album; an etheric art-pop classic and prototype for ambient-pop that endures in its own slipstream of time and space, up there with classics from Julee Cruise, Cocteaus or This Mortal Coil, and thee most enigmatic Wire/Dome-related projects.
Touchstones for everyone from Blackest Ever Black and Bill Kouligas to Teresa Winter and Optimo in the contemporary world, A.C. Marias began life with a holy grail 7” ‘Drop/So’ issued in 1981 among the earliest releases on Dome’s fledgling label, before disappearing for five years and returning with a trio of singles consequently collected in 1989’s ‘One of our Girls (Has Gone Missing).’ Long since out of print on any format, the LP has understandably become a sought-after collector’s item, coveted for as the best place to fully bask in Conway’s dream-pop lustre and some of Gilbert’s most earworming pop hooks, with production that, with benefit of hindsight, can be heard to measure distance travelled between the innovative methods of their 1981 staple, and the shifts that occurred by the end of that prodigious, template-setting decade.
Bar the notable omission of songs from ‘Drop/So’, which inexplicably remain unavailable on download format, the album is pretty much a best of A.C. Marias, showcasing their minimalist distillations of ideas cadged from krautrock to folk, dream-pop and ambient chamber jazz in drifting, half-songlike arrangements. ‘Just Talk’ from their 1986 single is perhaps the best place to start, with Conway’s sylvan vox diffused over simplest, but effective, guitar jangle and blushing synth pad, limning a plaintive formula that underlies the album’s most salient highlights in the lilt of syn-pipes, guitar and breathy contrails on ‘To Sleep’ or the ephemeral shape to ‘Sometime’, sensual petrichor evocations in the deferred gratification of ‘There’s a Scent of rain in the Air’, and obviously the Julee Cruise-esque jazz bar hush in ‘Trilby’s Couch’ in the same year as ‘Floating into the Night’.
But that’s not to discount the album’s other strain of interest, as they work just as well with grooves in the between-worlds shuffle of ‘Our Dust’ which sounds like they’re playing to no-one in the back room of the pub in the video to ‘Just Talk’, overheard incidental chatter included, and put some sinew on their bare-bones sound with the tough but soft ‘Give Me’, a delectable downbeat dream sequence ‘Looks Like’, and notably Dome alike machine drive of ‘One of Our Girls has Gone Missing’, which would later be issued as their final single. Angela Conway would promptly depart AC Marias and stop making music after this album, pivoting to video direction - notably for Wire, Erasure, Tindersticks and The Smashing Pumpkins - but left us with one of the ‘80s finest, between-worlds morsels, now primed for faves folders.
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Boomkat Product Review:
Angela Conway & Bruce Gilbert’s sole A.C.Marias album; an etheric art-pop classic and prototype for ambient-pop that endures in its own slipstream of time and space, up there with classics from Julee Cruise, Cocteaus or This Mortal Coil, and thee most enigmatic Wire/Dome-related projects.
Touchstones for everyone from Blackest Ever Black and Bill Kouligas to Teresa Winter and Optimo in the contemporary world, A.C. Marias began life with a holy grail 7” ‘Drop/So’ issued in 1981 among the earliest releases on Dome’s fledgling label, before disappearing for five years and returning with a trio of singles consequently collected in 1989’s ‘One of our Girls (Has Gone Missing).’ Long since out of print on any format, the LP has understandably become a sought-after collector’s item, coveted for as the best place to fully bask in Conway’s dream-pop lustre and some of Gilbert’s most earworming pop hooks, with production that, with benefit of hindsight, can be heard to measure distance travelled between the innovative methods of their 1981 staple, and the shifts that occurred by the end of that prodigious, template-setting decade.
Bar the notable omission of songs from ‘Drop/So’, which inexplicably remain unavailable on download format, the album is pretty much a best of A.C. Marias, showcasing their minimalist distillations of ideas cadged from krautrock to folk, dream-pop and ambient chamber jazz in drifting, half-songlike arrangements. ‘Just Talk’ from their 1986 single is perhaps the best place to start, with Conway’s sylvan vox diffused over simplest, but effective, guitar jangle and blushing synth pad, limning a plaintive formula that underlies the album’s most salient highlights in the lilt of syn-pipes, guitar and breathy contrails on ‘To Sleep’ or the ephemeral shape to ‘Sometime’, sensual petrichor evocations in the deferred gratification of ‘There’s a Scent of rain in the Air’, and obviously the Julee Cruise-esque jazz bar hush in ‘Trilby’s Couch’ in the same year as ‘Floating into the Night’.
But that’s not to discount the album’s other strain of interest, as they work just as well with grooves in the between-worlds shuffle of ‘Our Dust’ which sounds like they’re playing to no-one in the back room of the pub in the video to ‘Just Talk’, overheard incidental chatter included, and put some sinew on their bare-bones sound with the tough but soft ‘Give Me’, a delectable downbeat dream sequence ‘Looks Like’, and notably Dome alike machine drive of ‘One of Our Girls has Gone Missing’, which would later be issued as their final single. Angela Conway would promptly depart AC Marias and stop making music after this album, pivoting to video direction - notably for Wire, Erasure, Tindersticks and The Smashing Pumpkins - but left us with one of the ‘80s finest, between-worlds morsels, now primed for faves folders.
Boomkat Product Review:
Angela Conway & Bruce Gilbert’s sole A.C.Marias album; an etheric art-pop classic and prototype for ambient-pop that endures in its own slipstream of time and space, up there with classics from Julee Cruise, Cocteaus or This Mortal Coil, and thee most enigmatic Wire/Dome-related projects.
Touchstones for everyone from Blackest Ever Black and Bill Kouligas to Teresa Winter and Optimo in the contemporary world, A.C. Marias began life with a holy grail 7” ‘Drop/So’ issued in 1981 among the earliest releases on Dome’s fledgling label, before disappearing for five years and returning with a trio of singles consequently collected in 1989’s ‘One of our Girls (Has Gone Missing).’ Long since out of print on any format, the LP has understandably become a sought-after collector’s item, coveted for as the best place to fully bask in Conway’s dream-pop lustre and some of Gilbert’s most earworming pop hooks, with production that, with benefit of hindsight, can be heard to measure distance travelled between the innovative methods of their 1981 staple, and the shifts that occurred by the end of that prodigious, template-setting decade.
Bar the notable omission of songs from ‘Drop/So’, which inexplicably remain unavailable on download format, the album is pretty much a best of A.C. Marias, showcasing their minimalist distillations of ideas cadged from krautrock to folk, dream-pop and ambient chamber jazz in drifting, half-songlike arrangements. ‘Just Talk’ from their 1986 single is perhaps the best place to start, with Conway’s sylvan vox diffused over simplest, but effective, guitar jangle and blushing synth pad, limning a plaintive formula that underlies the album’s most salient highlights in the lilt of syn-pipes, guitar and breathy contrails on ‘To Sleep’ or the ephemeral shape to ‘Sometime’, sensual petrichor evocations in the deferred gratification of ‘There’s a Scent of rain in the Air’, and obviously the Julee Cruise-esque jazz bar hush in ‘Trilby’s Couch’ in the same year as ‘Floating into the Night’.
But that’s not to discount the album’s other strain of interest, as they work just as well with grooves in the between-worlds shuffle of ‘Our Dust’ which sounds like they’re playing to no-one in the back room of the pub in the video to ‘Just Talk’, overheard incidental chatter included, and put some sinew on their bare-bones sound with the tough but soft ‘Give Me’, a delectable downbeat dream sequence ‘Looks Like’, and notably Dome alike machine drive of ‘One of Our Girls has Gone Missing’, which would later be issued as their final single. Angela Conway would promptly depart AC Marias and stop making music after this album, pivoting to video direction - notably for Wire, Erasure, Tindersticks and The Smashing Pumpkins - but left us with one of the ‘80s finest, between-worlds morsels, now primed for faves folders.
Boomkat Product Review:
Angela Conway & Bruce Gilbert’s sole A.C.Marias album; an etheric art-pop classic and prototype for ambient-pop that endures in its own slipstream of time and space, up there with classics from Julee Cruise, Cocteaus or This Mortal Coil, and thee most enigmatic Wire/Dome-related projects.
Touchstones for everyone from Blackest Ever Black and Bill Kouligas to Teresa Winter and Optimo in the contemporary world, A.C. Marias began life with a holy grail 7” ‘Drop/So’ issued in 1981 among the earliest releases on Dome’s fledgling label, before disappearing for five years and returning with a trio of singles consequently collected in 1989’s ‘One of our Girls (Has Gone Missing).’ Long since out of print on any format, the LP has understandably become a sought-after collector’s item, coveted for as the best place to fully bask in Conway’s dream-pop lustre and some of Gilbert’s most earworming pop hooks, with production that, with benefit of hindsight, can be heard to measure distance travelled between the innovative methods of their 1981 staple, and the shifts that occurred by the end of that prodigious, template-setting decade.
Bar the notable omission of songs from ‘Drop/So’, which inexplicably remain unavailable on download format, the album is pretty much a best of A.C. Marias, showcasing their minimalist distillations of ideas cadged from krautrock to folk, dream-pop and ambient chamber jazz in drifting, half-songlike arrangements. ‘Just Talk’ from their 1986 single is perhaps the best place to start, with Conway’s sylvan vox diffused over simplest, but effective, guitar jangle and blushing synth pad, limning a plaintive formula that underlies the album’s most salient highlights in the lilt of syn-pipes, guitar and breathy contrails on ‘To Sleep’ or the ephemeral shape to ‘Sometime’, sensual petrichor evocations in the deferred gratification of ‘There’s a Scent of rain in the Air’, and obviously the Julee Cruise-esque jazz bar hush in ‘Trilby’s Couch’ in the same year as ‘Floating into the Night’.
But that’s not to discount the album’s other strain of interest, as they work just as well with grooves in the between-worlds shuffle of ‘Our Dust’ which sounds like they’re playing to no-one in the back room of the pub in the video to ‘Just Talk’, overheard incidental chatter included, and put some sinew on their bare-bones sound with the tough but soft ‘Give Me’, a delectable downbeat dream sequence ‘Looks Like’, and notably Dome alike machine drive of ‘One of Our Girls has Gone Missing’, which would later be issued as their final single. Angela Conway would promptly depart AC Marias and stop making music after this album, pivoting to video direction - notably for Wire, Erasure, Tindersticks and The Smashing Pumpkins - but left us with one of the ‘80s finest, between-worlds morsels, now primed for faves folders.
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