Margaret, Gia

Margaret, Gia

There's Always Glimmer

Orindal

***Chicago singer/songwriter/producer Gia Margaret describes her music as “sleep rock.” It’s a genre all her own, combining elements of folk, shoegaze, slowcore, ambient electronica and trip hop. For her self-produced debut album, There’s Always Glimmer (out July 27, 2018 on Orindal Records), Gia Margaret crafted twelve gorgeously melancholic lullabies to combat her own insomnia, and to salvage some beauty from the brighter and darker moments of her life.There’s Always Glimmer explores relationships between friends, family members and significant others, often in past tense. Sparse verses isolate mundane moments of domestic and urban life, and choruses ache with earnest expressions of yearning and loss. The disarmingly simple language of Gia Margaret’s lyrics, when carried by the melodic sparkle of her singing voice, have the power to elevate an ordinary moment into something supremely nostalgic and sentimental. A ride on a train, a hand on a shoulder, a dog in a yard, the light of the moon through an apartment window are each made significant and sacred, worthy of examination and preservation.As much as it addresses the unease in our lives, each song on There’s Always Glimmer is steeped in loving comfort, awash with gentle sounds to usher the still minutes before dreams come, when we’re left alone amidst the shadows and the echoes of our memory. There’s Always Glimmer exists to fill the darkness and the quiet.

Margaret, Gia

Mia Gargaret

Orindal

***Mia Gargaret is an ambient, (mostly) instrumental album by Chicago, IL singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist & producer Gia Margaret. Mia Gargaret was not the follow-up album that Gia intended to release after the critical success of her 2018 debut, There’s Always Glimmer. But after she suddenly found herself without use of her primary instrument, she had to rethink her methods, at least temporarily. Gia explains: “After having to cancel tours because of illness, I was unable to sing for nearly half of the year. This left me feeling like a shell of myself, so I turned to my synthesizer for comfort. These compositions helped me hold onto my identity as a music maker. At times this music helped soothe my anxiety more than therapy or anything else could.” Without singing or lyrics to steal the focus, the instrumental tracks on Mia Gargaret shine a light on Gia Margaret’s skills as a musician, composer & producer. Spare but immersive arrangements of synthesizer, piano & acoustic guitar simultaneously ache & soothe, building emotional landscapes that rise & recede like scenery through a train window. “I wanted to make something that sounded hopeful, which is a little ironic because I felt essentially hopeless during the entire process. I was making music to self-soothe. I had synth loops going while I walked around my apartment, forming my own daily soundtrack.”