Marika Hackman – Big Sigh Review

Having to roll out of bed early after trundling through Asda in the early hours of the morning for a food shop does bring out a bit of a sigh. Not a big sigh, though. Leave those major expressions to the professionals. Marika Hackman’s latest work, Big Sigh, is a piece of folk life and one which layers the boom of folk traditions heard in the ridings of Yorkshire over the last few years. Hackman is in good company and marks the death of her 20s with a grand, whistling album stuffed full of quality. Barely audible vocals, drowned out by pianos and twinkling instrumentals, the rising strings of change and the fear of it further in the heart – all of it comes through on first track The Ground, which opens under Hackman and tries to pull those heady days of the 20s away. 

Her listeners must be feeling the horrors too, those days of turning twenty-five are just a year away for some who still cannot tie their shoelaces and wear Chelsea boots for it. Stay away from the fun of it all, the distortion toward the end of The Ground will serve as either a shock to the system and pull you away from the spiralling 30s around the corner or push you down further. Give No Caffeine a listen before you make your choice – best enjoyed, ironically, with a coffee. Falling apart never sounded so comfortable, and it does sound welcoming on Big Sigh, the title track terror set out by Hackman is as moving as it is charming. Haunting threats linger on Hanging, and they kick on through the second half of this resounding, sharp folk piece. 

Instrumental interlude The Lonely House provides all those tender charms before the clicks and slides of Vitamins pour through, the afterburn of heartbreak uncovered with such tenderness. It is the slide guitar, the thump and pained pangs of a bass and the scratching of metallic jitters which bring out the best in the transfixed and at-odds introduction of strings and otherworldly instrumentals. Hackman finds herself at the core of great back-and-forth, an eclectic and world-beating inspiration for those who find themselves dished out and down in the muddy waters of the real world. Pangs of these horrors are clear and well cut for Big Sigh, which has more than a few moments of elevated material – the back end of Vitamins, its instrumental vigour, in particular.  

Slime is anything but the goopy procedure it promises with its title, instead, a charmed and intimate wonder, with the reflections of needing someone there, their head above the rest, ripe for the taking. Hackman has placed her hands on the pulse of the world and found within it something to connect to and a listener clearly in need of some guidance. Big Sigh is not the shining light forward – it is at odds with itself and uncomfortable with its surroundings as anyone sane enough to keep their eyes open, but it has a grand and odyssey-like presentation to it. We are all in this together, this being the complete and unremarkable. Unknown the future may be, it feels a little more comfortable and that much better with a listen to Hackman and her latest piece of folk wonders.