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One would wonder, was Mariel Buckley a precocious youngster that coloured outside the lines? She’d most likely have told us ‘Who said that’s where the lines should be?’. The Albertan singer songwriter has defied those lines when it comes to music as well. Raised in the middle of Canada’s rodeo capital and country music capital, Buckley has struck a chord, both sonically and philosophically. As someone that’s knocked down genre and real-life fences, Buckley’s signature brand of angst-ridden alt-folk has quickly established her as one of the most satiating artists with a modern take on country music.
Buckley’s 2018 self-released debut album, Driving In The Dark (ind.), is a 10 song collection of driving country/rock gems. Every song showcases beautiful, roomy instrumentation that lets her lyrics settle in with the listener. The title track starts with ‘Never been a gambler’, but that couldn’t be further from the truth, no matter how high the stakes. What drives Buckley’s authentic charm is her ability to question what society far too casually accepts.
In 2022 Buckley released her critically acclaimed sophomore album, Everywhere I Used To Be (Birthday Cake Records). It quickly gained momentum – holding court on coveted campus stations, playlists and radio rotation, critic’s picks and long form interviews including No Depression, NPR’s Great American Folk Show, Brooklyn Vegan, Magnet Magazine, Americana UK, CKUA and Sirius XM’s North Americana. The Polaris Music Prize (long list, 2023) nominated album has been further decorated with two nods from the Western Canada Music Awards for Breakout Artist of the Year and Roots Album of the Year.
Song titles like Going Nowhere, Hate This Town, Horse Named Nothing and Love Ain’t Enough heavily underscore the subject matter that Buckley tackles with intentional rawness, “When I wrote this record, l felt myself becoming clearer in the process. I became softer in my personal life and sharper in my songs. I finally saw the person, musician and songwriter I want to be. When you grow up as the town freak, you get used to hiding who you are to become more palatable for those around you. This album was in defiance of that.”
The cut to the bone biting lyrics that hold real estate on Everywhere I Used To Be are, at times married to and at times juxtaposed to, the meticulously appointed instrumentation that Buckley and producer, Marcus Paquin (The Weather Station, The Barr Brothers, The National, Julia Jacklin) chose for each of the 10 tracks. Fuzzy emo-reminiscent guitars, deep grooves and spacious rhythm while still maintaining her signature driving feel, and the soaring pedal steel will have you crying in your beer and in anthemic singalong euphoria.
Her live journey has been a strong, steady climb – SXSW, Americanafest, The Philadelphia Folk Fest, Jackalope Jamboree (Pendleton OR), Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver Folk Festivals; Canadian, European and American tours, as well as sharing stages and audiences with Orville Peck, kd Lang, Frazey Ford, Matt Andersen and The Bros Landreth. Buckley frequents bar stages around Western Canada with brother, T. Buckley, playing from each other's catalogs with sibling harmonies and a folk/songwriter sensibility.
“This is a major step forward for Buckley. Her palpable confidence in her talent, along with some hypnotic melodies, is on track to making her a significant alt-county/ Americana presence.” – Holler.Country (EWIUTB, 2022)