Mary Middlefield

I caught up with Mary Middlefield before her sell out performance at the Paper Dress Vintage Bar & Boutique in Hackney, outside in a small courtyard - the sounds of the hustle and bustle of London all around us.  It is the early days of a tour to celebrate her latest album, “Will You Take Me As I Am”.  Without wishing to sound too “fanboy”, I blurt out that I’m a big fan of the album, playing tracks regularly on my Freak Havoc radio show.   Because to me, it feels like an album of singles -  each track distinct, each one hook‑laden.  Catchiness, it turns out, was no accident.

“I really tried to adapt to write for the live scene.  To create moments in each song that people could remember,” she explains. “I thought about the catchiest melody we can put in there, the catchiest riff.”  Mary’s writing process is fluid.  Sometimes disciplined, sometimes chaotic, often collaborative.  “We were five to seven people in the room at one point,” she says. “You get so much input.  Sometimes it’s not the right one, but it was creatively fulfilling.”

She expressed a frustration in her earlier years of playing older material to audiences who weren’t quite connecting. “So, if the audience is not a big fan of that when they come and discover you…. let’s pivot.”

And pivot she did. Tracks like “Wake Up”, the most recent single (and the set closer tonight), even carries a 90s post grunge snarl, something she embraces with a grin.  As she admits bashfully to an admiring crowd later in the evening, she is craving some kind of recognition.  Mary doesn’t hide her drive, as we chat .  “I want to go as far as possible.  I’m very ambitious and I do my best to work every single moment I can.”

But full stop Mary’s album is a shapeshifter.  Sometimes cinematic, some times grungy, with the orchestral pedigree you would expect from a trained and accomplished violinist.  When asked about the record’s sprawling influences, she doesn’t hesitate.

“I listened a lot to The Last Shadow Puppets.  That was a big reference string‑wise, drum sounds,” she says. “We listened to The Last Dinner Party a little bit as well.  And I listened to a lot of film scores too”.  She also nods to French chanson: “I listened to a lot of French singer‑songwriters like Charles Aznavour.  Lot of interesting bits and percussion.”

The album took “two and a half years” to make, a period Mary describes as focused and intentional.  She went in with a clear intention.  An album embracing the attitude of earlier single Sexless, but on steroids!  What emerged was something she calls a kind of rock opera.  A particular favourite?  “Lately I’ve been really into ‘Untitled Love Song’. It’s the first track I wrote for the record, and I love it just as much today.”

I asked what its like taking the album on the road.  “On the 45‑minute sets, it feels like you’re on the motorway at 140 BPM,” she laughs. “After the seventh song, you’re dead inside — but the audience never stops reacting.  But we are selling out shows, which feels crazy, because I’m thinking who knows me in, say, Portsmouth? But then you can hear that  people knew the songs.”  That recognition hits differently this time around. “It feels like all the hard work… is finally paying off.”