Violation and survival have become common themes in art by women over the last few years. By speaking truth to power and digging into personal, painful memories, an image emerges of what it means to exist in the world as a woman.
What about when patriarchy is not only in the physical world, but also the spiritual? It’s a question that the Melbourne-based singer-songwriter Tori Zietsch, who records as Maple Glider, tackles with her second album. Like Julia Jacklin’s excellent 2022 album Pre Pleasure, it explores the impact of a religious upbringing – and the accompanying surveillance, implied or actual – on a woman’s sexuality and sense of self. It is a logical successor to Zietsch’s stunning folksy debut, 2021’s To Enjoy Is the Only Thing, which tracked the seismic shifts of leaving both a religion and a relationship.
The single Dinah is this record’s centrepiece: its colourful music video and joyful, upbeat pop sound belies its devastating content. Based on the Bible story of a young woman who is raped and then blamed for it, Zietsch’s song unpacks the lifelong impact of hearing that tale as a child, and its effects on her own trauma. It’s a pointed finger at the victim-blaming tendencies that breed a culture of silence, and the lyrics slice like a knife: “The same thing happened to me when I was only 17 / Do you think I got what I deserved?”
Don’t Kiss Me, too, is a song about consent and agency – a moving staple of Maple Glider’s live shows prior to its official release here. “Sometimes my own body doesn’t feel like my body,” Zietsch sings over slow, sumptuous backing. It’s both shattering and enraging.
But among the hurt, there is joy to be found on this record too. On the back-to-back tracks You at the Top of the Driveway and You’re Gonna Be a Daddy, Zietsch reflects on watching her brother become a father. In true millennial fashion, she sings, “I really want to be the cool aunty like I am to my best friend’s dog.” There are hints of healing in these gentle songs.
Musically, the record picks up on where Zietsch’s first album left off on tracks such as Do You, which drifts atop a fingerpicked guitar refrain, and the piano-dotted Two Years. Elsewhere, on the haunting FOMO, Zietsch channels the ethereality of artists such as Marissa Nadler and Emiliana Torrini, showing off her higher register in a tale of very contemporary existential dread. “My bank account’s not healthy and neither is my sex life,” she sings – mood.
As an artist, Zietsch understands the impact of silence – the way negative space in songs can allow meaning to expand. On Surprises, she utilises silence to great effect, incorporating pauses and breaths to fully harness the quiet power of her vocals. Her voice is as beautiful unadorned as it is when drenched in rich harmony, whether doubled with her own vocals or accompanied by others – as on the simple and crushingly lovely For You and All the Songs We Loved.
I Get Into Trouble is a generous and deeply emotional record that embodies what Zietsch does so well: offering the listener a window into her most vulnerable thoughts, while also holding a mirror to the social structures that have led her there. Through this album, Zietsch bears witness to both herself and the world.
I Get Into Trouble by Maple Glider is out now via Partisan Records
