Maple Glider shares new single and video; 'Baby Tiger'

“Search Artists”

“delicate, dreamy folk… fans of Sharon Van Etten’s more stripped down, spare early work should find plenty to like here” – BrooklynVegan

Maple Glider today shares “Baby Tiger,” from her forthcoming album, To Enjoy is the Only Thing, out June 25th, 2021 via Pieater/Partisan Records. The delicate track, premiered first by Matt Wilkinson on Apple Music 1, features Maple Glider awash with apathy and backed by a nylon string guitar and piano (reminiscent of Erik Satie’s “Trois Gymnopédies”).

Listen HERE

Watch her roommate’s cat, Coriander (aka ‘baby tiger’) protectively care for her in the grainy, retro-feeling video (dir. by Bridgette Winten).

On “Baby Tiger,” Zietsch elaborates: “‘Baby Tiger’ was written soon after I’d returned home from Brighton. I was really struggling with my mental health, but I was going out and kind of using dating as a distraction from dealing with it. It never really worked. I’d just end up feeling worse when I was alone. Coriander hates closed doors. She’ll always want to know what you’re doing on the other side. It kind of became comforting to hear her scratch at my door. It was something that felt constant and unwavering and regular at a time when I was a bit vacant. Her energy made me feel lighter. I’m very detached from the ‘man’ I address in the song, but I beg for him to comfort me. Though I am feeling unwell, I am pretty certain that it is temporary. I know that ‘I’ll come back to me soon.’ My housemate says she sees this as a kind of happy song because it features Coriander, and I really love that perspective, because even though I was in a bad place when I wrote it, there is an element of hopefulness.”

Maple Glider is the project of Tori Zietsch (pron. like ‘peach’ with a z), and on To Enjoy is the Only Thing she compiles a striking set of vignettes from her life; growing up in a restrictive religious household, falling in and out of love, cross-country and international travel, longing, alienation, and more. Moments both unremarkable and life-altering, but always deeply felt, brought to vivid life by the beauty of Tori’s artistry and wry sense of dark humour.

Following the dissolution of a previous musical project in early 2018, Zietsch left Melbourne and moved to the seaside town of Brighton, U.K. It was there she began to work on solo material, drawing from bouts of homesickness, basking in the lengthy European summer hours, and writing non-stop. She returned to Melbourne in late 2019 with a SoundCloud account full to capacity of demo uploads, enlisting Tom Lansek (Big Scary, #1 Dads, The Paper Kites, Hockey Dad) to produce and record the songs that would eventually form, To Enjoy is the Only Thing.

Zietsch only started releasing singles last fall, “As Tradition,” “Good Thing,” and “Swimming,” yet she has connected easily and earnestly with a global fanbase. Partnering with labels Pieater (in Australia) and Partisan (ROW), Zietsch now has fans at NPR Music, Stereogum, Paste, KCRW, Gorilla vs Bear, Consequence, triple j, UPROXX, and more, for her devastating yet piercingly beautiful music, as well as over 3 million streams, a sold out debut headline set and upcoming shows lined up in Australia with Julia Jacklin and Angie McMahon. Pre-order for the album is now available. Fans will receive a zine with all vinyl pre-orders, and bundles include a tie-dye tee with the LP logo up-titled to To “Fang It” is the Only Thing (a cheeky, personal saying of Tori’s that also inspired one of her tattoos).