Photo by Senny Mau

Located on a rooftop off Beacon Street, tons of people traveling in and out of Boston on a daily basis get a glimpse of the LED-lit Citgo sign that oversees Kenmore Square. For those who live there, it’s an iconic landmark that represents their hometown and wouldn’t be the same without it. For those passing through, it’s a photo op that defines your experience there. In each case, it’s something that transcends the loud and blatant advertising by an evil oil corporation looking down on the city.

I imagine that’s similarly the paradox that presented itself in the mind of Maria BC when they wrote “Marathon”, the lead single and title track from the ambient folk-gazer’s third studio effort. The backstory is really no different: “There was a Marathon gas station at the end of the street I lived on as a kid. Its big, glowing sign was a landmark for me — when I could see it from the window of my mom’s car, I knew we were about to be home,” they recount. “Its iconic ‘M’ — on the rare occasion I encounter one these days — still brings up that old feeling, the familiarity of homecoming, and a twinge of nostalgia.”

Whatever that nostalgia is more than beginning to fade within the Oakland-based songwriter’s damaged light. A twilight twinkle of piano soon becomes overwhelmed by waves of distortion, as if that giant “M’” emblem radiating from the distance is slowly but surely disintegrating the closer they get to reevaluating its view from a present day perspective. “Porcelain angel watching from the doorway / Crying, ‘You can’t go home again’.” Perhaps it’s best to just keep all warm memories in the past, because colder realities may leave you empty.

Directed by: F. Saber Sutphin

Maria BC’s Marathon will be released February 27th on Sacred Bones.