Attention all 80s kids and New Wave fans!

Black Marble is the creation of New Yorker Chris Stewart and has been active since 2011. This is the 5th album,  but the first in 5 years.

The main themes of the album are the music industry itself. How do artists survive and get by in this ephemeral age, what does authenticity mean now?

Stewart said, “I always knew a lot of people in music struggled to make ends meet, but it surprised me to learn that the people you thought would be doing well often weren’t. For me, seeing the business from the inside like that changed how I looked at things. When I looked up to see a new artist on a billboard, I started to wonder, will I one day have to pretend to be something I’m not, in order to succeed? The life of an artist goes on after your moment ends, you know? So who do you want to be in the end and how do you want to be seen by the people that know you? I made Life In Small Spaces while thinking about that, and for me, it serves as my own ideal for living an artistic life. I’m doing it as a vocation, not some last ditch effort to escape to some other world. I made this record not only as a way of saying that, but as a way of saying it’s ok to feel that way. It’s ok for people to sacrifice some degree of creature comfort in order to live a life you believe in. And it doesn’t have to be an endless search for something just out of reach, it can be a permanent way of being and something that sustains you.”

It is safe to say Stewart has remained authentically true to himself on this latest album. It is a wall to wall synthfest, with a side of drum machines, that will bring a smile to any child of the 1980s. Stranger Things has definitely bought this style of music (synth-pop, new-wave, cold-wave) heavily back into focus with generations that weren’t even born when the original exponents played it. There have been some fun albums and artists that play around in these genres in recent years. Lathe of Heaven are one band we would highly recommend. The best artist of all is Canadian Ekkstacy, who takes all those ideas and brings it bang up to date in a range of clever ways.

This is a decent album, it won’t be for everyone but if you enjoy the genres it swims in, or are old enough to feel nostalgia for the eighties, then you will get something out of it.