Former member of Low Chimes – Maja Lena – has released a gorgeous, new pastoral folk song through Chiverin Records. ‘The Keeper’ explores our relationship with ourselves and comes with an enchanting video, starring and filmed ‘home video style’ by Maja, with some filming by her husband Luke Oakley-Smith. She used a VHS camcorder from the 90s to give it that nostalgic, aged feel and it really works. The focus of the video is very much Maja, like an elongated selfie filmed at different places and at different times.
‘The Keeper’ features backing vocals from Rachael Dadd and was produced, recorded and mixed by Rob Pemberton. It’s the title track from Maja’s debut solo album which is out on 23rd July through Chiverin
Records).
“The song name ‘The Keeper’ to me resembles the keeper of the self” Maja
Lena explains. “It is what I decided to call the album as it summed up a
lot of the themes for me. The song itself is about our relationship to
ourselves and how we view ourselves. Whether we hold trust in ourselves
and if the way in which we strive can ultimately lead to us feeling less
satisfied in life.”
It’s a beautiful song and layers in instrumentation as it develops, but always lightly so. Some mellotron (I think) comes to the fore towards the end of the song and gives it an ethereal, space-like quality. There is a wonderful little key change in there where Maja wraps her delicate voice around a change that I suspect was harder to pull off than she made it sound. Bring on the album!
