Tag: Blonde Maze Antarctica

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

With the release of Oceans EP, Blonde Maze, the acclaimed recording project of New York-based singer/songwriter. electronic music artist and producer Amanda Steckler received attention from this site and elsewhere across the blogosphere for slickly produced synth pop centered around earnest lyricism, documenting her experiences, feelings and thoughts. Since Oceans EP, Steckler has released a handful of singles including “Antartica,” “Thunder” and others to praise from Billboard Pride, DJMag, XLR8R, Impose Magazine and many others, as well as love and support from BBC1, MrSuicideSheep, and MTV Radar.

Adding to a growing profile, Steckler’s material has landed on several Spotify and Apple Music playlists, including Spotify’s US Viral 50, as well as landing at #1 on Hype Machine‘s No Remixes chart. LADYGUNN named her an “artist you should’ve seen at SXSW 2018″ — and she’s opened for the likes of The Shadowboxers, Elderbrook and Vallis Alps. During that same period of time, the JOVM mainstay also released collaborations with a number of established and up-and-coming electronic music producers including including the Iowa City, IA-born, Duluth, MN-based electronic music artist and producer Kyle Stern, best known as Attom. 

The New York-based electronic music artist, electronic music producer and JOVM mainstay begins her 2021 with a cover of Mazzy Star‘s beloved, 1993 smash hit “Fade Into You.” While replacing the jangling guitars, twinkling keys and tambourine of the beloved original with shimmering and atmospheric synths, synth click and skittering beats, the Blonde Maze cover retains both vocal melody and the swooning and urgent yearning of the original — but the end result is more of a contented sigh.

“IMO it’s kind of a blissful/happy take on the beautifully yearning original,” Steckler wrote to me in an email. “I’ve been listening to the original for years — probably a decade now — and still love it. Hope Sandoval and David Roback really created a gem.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past two years, you’ve likely come across a handful of posts on Blonde Maze, the solo recording project of New York-based electronic music artist, producer and singer/songwriter Amanda Steckler. And over that two year period, Steckler has seen a growing profile for crafting slickly produced and atmospheric synth pop — although over the course of her last few singles, including “Antarctica,” Steckler’s sound has increasingly been centered around twinkling piano, percussive and buoyant marimbas, layered vocals and propulsive, house music-like hooks.

It’s been a little over a year since the release of the aforementioned “Antarctica,” and although I haven’t written about new Blonde Maze material — until now, that is — Steckler been rather busy, writing and recording new material, much of which will appear on an EP slated for release in 2018. “Thunder,” the as of yet unnamed EP’s first single continues in a similar vein as its immediate predecessor but with a gauzier and much more wistful vibe over the passing of time. As Steckler explains in press notes, “To me ‘Thunder’ is about growing and changing with someone. You start to miss older times with them, but you also acknowledge that the growth has made them an inseparable part of your heart. Sometimes, with a relationship’s maturity, you lose your patience more, you let your guard down, and you get hurt, but the beauty of this maturity is that there becomes no one else in the world you are as comfortable growing with.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you had been frequenting this site over the course of last year, you would have come across a couple of posts on Amanda Stickler, a New York-basd electronic music artist and producer, and her solo recording project Blonde Maze. And with the release of the aching  “Summer Rain,” off her debut EP Oceans and a slow-burning and melancholic cover of “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home),” Steckler received attention here and across several other sites across the blogosphere for slickly produced yet atmospheric electro pop that possessed a plaintive ache and longing for someone dear being half a world away.

 

It’s been close to a year, since we’ve last heard from Steckler, and her latest single “Antarctica” features a slick, glittering and swooning house music-leaning production featuring layers of cascading and shimmering synths, marimbas, layers of cut and chopped vocal samples, stuttering and skittering drum programming and hand claps paired with Steckler’s breathy and tender cooing.  Interestingly, the song focuses on a profound emotional connection — but at its core is that weird dichotomy between the fear and sting of loss and the sense of dependence that comes up within every relationship, even the most functional ones. And it captures that with an emotional honesty and wisdom that belies the artist’s relatively young age.