Marina Allen, the Los Angeles-based singer and songwriter, unveils a new single/video, ‘Deep Fake’ from her upcoming third studio album, ‘Eight Pointed Star’, out June 7th. Following the album’s release, Allen will play record release shows in Los Angeles, New York City and London before supporting Ben Howard for a run of European dates.
Leading into the release of ‘Eight Pointed Star‘, Allen has presented two singles: ‘Red Cloud’, praised by FADER for “[housing] a world as vivid as it is ambiguous and altogether irresistible” and the “delightfully sunkissed” (Paste) ‘Swinging Doors’. New single ‘Deep Fake’ is a Noah’s Ark-style tribute to love and self-discovery that steps into the internet age. It features a special guest performance from Hand Habits’ Meg Duffy on guitar and synthesizer. Released with a brand new music video, directed by Callie Hernandez, it deals with themes of deep fakes in the digital sphere which is explored through face altering technology.
Allen elaborates: “‘Deep Fake’ felt like a little revelation. It spun from this writing workshop I took, led by Chris Weisman. I took guitar lessons from him when I was 20. He has all these tools for songwriting, and ‘Deep Fake’ came out of a prompt. I can’t even remember what the prompt was. It’s sort of two different songs that I just put together. I wanted the first part to feel really personal, like talking to someone you love. It’s also about naming all of these very complicated things that make up our culture. Recognizing them as a reality. But to confront them and see it as sacred.”
“The video superimposes Marina’s face onto the faces of myriad women via sourced archival footage- AKA “Deep Fake.” The latter half of the video was shot on a glitchy DV camera, which was intentionally used to further blur the line between reality and fiction; real and unreal.” Callie Hernandez
“For fans of Cassandra Jenkins’s self-possessed lyrical unspoolings. A delicately orchestrated ramble filled with captivating images of interdependence… glorious” The Guardian
“An artist approaching the peak of their powers.” Shindig ★★★★★
Across two introductory records, ‘Centrifics’ and ‘Candlepower’, Allen has ripened a rare harvest, but her third studio album is an arrival home. Taking fragments and stories from Allen’s past, storylines jettison and dance throughout. This timeless collection of songs is a clear-eyed modern classic of alternative folk and Americana that holds a curiosity as open to you as you are to them. It’s an album about discovery, searching with the eight points of a compass; about hope, gazing at the emanations within the eight points of a North Star; and about ancestry, being comforted by the eight-pointed stitching patterns used in quilt-making. Full of little, radical acts, coming from a place of truth, ‘Eight Pointed Star’ favours a type of soul-searching that doesn’t dwell in complications, and is open to answers. Trust is the centrifuge around which themes of love, family and folklore unfurl across the album.
You can hear contentment radiating from the music, with Chris Cohen’s (Weyes Blood, Le Ren) production offering a full-band affair. The instrumentation is rich and bursting with brightness, as slide guitar drifts over acoustic thrums. Allen’s voice has never sounded more resolute than it does here, her songs holding a dynamism that conjure distinctive worlds of their own.
“Steeped in a lustrous and folky mystique that pulls you in instantly.” Paste
Live Dates:
13 Jun: Scribble, Los Angeles, CA, US
19 Jun: Union Pool, New York, NY, US
21 Jun: The Slaughtered Lamb, London, UK
24 Jun: Cirkus, Stockholm, Sweden *
25 Jun: Sentrum Scene, Oslo, Norway *
26 Jun: DR Koncerthusets, Copenhagen, Denmark *
29 Jun: De Vereeniging, Nijmegen, Netherlands *
30 Jun: De Oosterpoort, Groningen, Netherlands *
02 Oct: The Ford Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, US †
03 Oct: Henry Miller Memorial Library, Big Sur, CA †
* With Ben Howard
† With Devendra Banhart
