Marika Hackman

“What a remarkable artist, and what a remarkable album" - The Sunday Times, 4/5 (Album of the Week)

“Grabs you instantly and doesn’t let go” - The Mail on Sunday, 4/5 (Album of the Week)

“Overflowing with ideas, tangents and curiosity, big sigh embraces an assortment of waterfronts” - 4/5  MOJO  

“A defining moment for one of the UK’s most intriguing songwriters” - 4/5 NME

"Pointed and incisive, her work has scarcely been so full of life” - 8/10 CLASH

“Skillfully blending soft and harsh sonic moments, Hackman breathes fresh life into well-trodden big emotions: heartbreak, anxiety, lust” - 8/10 UNCUT

“The contrasting sonic sensibilities capture the process of feeling stuck in a hopeless space right to the point where she unexpectedly (but determinedly) bursts through its barriers. Big Sigh is a testament to Hackman’s evolving artistry” - 8/10 Loud and Quiet

Today, singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Marika Hackman releases her new single ‘The Yellow Mile,’ which arrives alongside a video she co-directed with Nàtalia Pàges that shows Marika being buried alive under the paraphernalia of previous relationships.

‘The Yellow Mile’ is the fourth track to be lifted from Marika’s forthcoming album Big Sigh - her first in 4 years, coming out this Friday, 12 January via Chrysalis Records. ‘The Yellow Mile’ follows the single ‘Slime’ which featured on the BList at BBC 6 Music.

One of the many highlights on ‘Big Sigh,’ and the album closer, ‘The Yellow Mile’ is Marika at her most authentic and intimate. With raw, scratchy acoustic guitar it brings us close to her with its subtly dislocating tenderness. ‘The Yellow Mile’ is a moment of reflection on her new album, a song which Marika wanted to feel like the opposite of a grand finale, to feel small again; it was also the last song she wrote for the record. Marika explains: “I wanted to go back to my roots as a songwriter, me and a guitar, crafted, very immediate.”

Where some of Marika’s early records pummelled the gut, forthcoming new album Big Sigh toys more with the mind. Marika’s records have always had a wry, disturbing preoccupation with bodily expulsions - blood, puke and beyond. These are all the physical elements of being alive that make Marika feel out of control, the ones she so desperately avoids in real life but on this album she confronts corporeality with brutal honesty. Big Sigh - the “hardest record” Marika has ever made - is, as its title suggests, a release of sorts. It is an edifying blend of sadness, stress and lust, but mostly - and crucially - that of relief.

Leaving the carnal days of her 20s behind, this album is less a photo-real documentation of the moment, but more like an artist peering through a gap in a door to reassess her former life. In her never-ending pursuit of untangling her internal universe and exploring complex melodies, she has made her most honest and brave album yet. Not only has Marika played every instrument save for the brass and strings on Big Sigh, but produced it too, along with Sam Petts-Davies [Thom Yorke, Warpaint] and long-term collaborator Charlie Andrew. “I’d always produced on my records, but I'd never backed myself enough to actually say that I had. I liked being a sponge and I saw the first two thirds of my career as a learning experience - I would sit back in a slightly deferential position to allow the dynamic to work. With this album I got to a point where I realised I’d done the learning, I knew what to do.”

On previous albums Marika has explored many genres, enough that on Big Sigh she was able to land somewhere in the middle of all previous work. Marika wants everything to be growth as a songwriter and now producer, Big Sigh has a lot of the through line of her first record, but without any of the naivety, like a grownup's take of that record, but with the sense of sonic adventure and dynamics of the following two. Big Sigh has its own identity, sometimes rough, sometimes beautiful, often both.

As part of the physical release, the album is available as an exclusive indie stores coloured vinyl with a limited edition print plus a very limited and numbered screen-print created by Marika for Rough Trade shops, and signed formats with a bonus acoustic CD from the official store HERE. Marika has announced a January instore tour which will be followed by a headline UK and EU tour with Gia Ford and Ben Gregory supporting.