Q&A: mer marcum Confronts Life’s Meaning in New Single, “Contradictions”
WRITTEN BY AMRITA KUMAR
✮ ⋆ ˚｡𖦹 ⋆｡°✩
With deeply philosophical lyrics and incredible vulnerability, Brooklyn-based indie artist mer marcum confronts herself in her new single, “Contradictions.” Self-produced by Marcum herself, the track weaves together lush synth, layered vocals, and minimal percussion, creating a soundscape that reflects her inner monologue. The single resonates with anyone who has ever questioned life’s meaning on a deep, profound level.
Life On Jupiter spoke with Marcum about the making of “Contradictions,” the poetic and philosophical influences that shaped it, and how this new era of music allows her to tap into her most creative and authentic self.
LIFE ON JUPITER: Can you tell me a little bit about your music origin story? How long have you been a musician, and when did you first realize that you wanted to start making music?
MARCUM: My introduction to music was mostly classical. I was a choir kid and all that. I was like, “I'm gonna be an opera singer.” Then I went to college, and I went to the college where my parents teach, and I studied music in a couple forms - one of them being composition. I got way more into it during the pandemic, and it forced me to use technology a lot more with music. I downloaded Logic and started loosely producing music. My music knowledge and my worldview of music was the size of a pea. Then when I graduated I got a job in San Francisco at a music festival, and I was around indie music for the first time, which sounds so crazy. It was the Sutro Stage at Outside Lands Music Festival. I was like, “This is so awesome.” Then this girl I knew from college moved to New York, and she was like, “I need a roommate.” So, I flew from San Francisco to New York and moved there with her. I had really deep reasons for wanting to be in New York my whole life, but it just never felt like such a close reality.
When writing music, do you have any favorite artists or genres that you like to take inspiration from?
MARCUM: Recently, I’ve been listening to a lot of Slowdive and Duster. My music never sounds like what I'm listening to.
For those people who haven't heard your music yet, how would you typically describe it to them?
MARCUM: I've been saying alt folk and indie rock. Undeniably, I'm a solo project with a band, and I'm a singer-songwriter. I am really inspired by collaboration, working with other people, as well as technology and digital music making. I like combining a lot of influences, from my background in traditional music, into modern zeitgeist and landscapes. I also love lyrics and I love poetry. Then, taking all of that into the visual world is like a playground. There’s so much to do.
Any particular poets or writings that you're inspired by?
MARCUM: I love Maggie Nelson. That's my girl. I'm reading a lot of really interesting things right now. I'm reading Liz Phair’s memoir called Horror Stories. My friend, Shane, just lent me an Anne Carson book, and it is really inspiring as well.
You just released a new single called “Contradictions.” What was the inspiration behind that song?
MARCUM: My dad is a philosopher, and so by nature, I took an interest in philosophy growing up. It kind of stuck with me, just as a way of looking at the world. I wrote this song in 2023. At that time, I was really in my early 20s identity crisis, and the song was kind of cheeky, and it wasn’t too deep. But it was inspired by this philosophy called Dialethism, which says that there are true contradictions. It led me down this rabbit hole to find this guy, Graham Priest, who writes and teaches about this philosophy. And I just got really interested in that. Not that the song is philosophical in nature at all. In fact, I’m borderline doing what Alanis Morissette did with the song “Ironic,” where people were like, “These aren’t actually ironies.” It was also supposed to be kind of antithetical to a traditional song structure, because it’s just three verses, no chorus, and no drums, etc. It was also self-produced by me, so there are a lot of feats around the song that I am proud of, and it's funny to put it out so much later, now that I'm making new music. But ultimately, I still felt like I wanted it out.
How is this single different from what you've released in the past?
MARCUM: I think the things I released in the past were a little less intentional. When you start making music with other people, and you have that imposter syndrome onus hanging over you, you often default to what you feel like the smartest person in the room has to offer. A lot of the earlier music I made - not that I have a bad relationship with it - but I think about it in terms of not being fully in my creative control. Because I self-produced, it was fully in my creative control. There’s this satisfaction that comes with that, like “I made this exactly what I wanted it to be and exactly what it sounded like in my head.” These decisions were mine and I have a lot of pride around that. It's my first song with modular synth, and it's more in that digital folk world that I think is fresh and exciting to me right now.
How long was the overall process from writing to production to mixing?
MARCUM: Like I said, I wrote it two years ago, and then I made another version of it with a producer, and that version was beautiful. It was much more of a pure folk acoustic instrumentation. For a while, I just sat on the song while I worked on so much other music. I didn't think I was going to release it, but then I revisited it, and I just felt like that song always stuck with me. I rewrote the melody, and I started making it myself. I’m surrounded by some of the best musicians here in New York, so I got to work with so many of them on the song. That was really fun for me to let loose.
What has the response been like to the song?
MARCUM: It’s been really sweet to have people reaching out about the song. I love to do release parties and gather people, and I like to feel that in-person community, because that gets really lost in digital music making.
What's your favorite part of the song?
MARCUM: Okay, so I have two favorite parts. First is the very beginning. My friend Campbell Burns played modular synth on the song, and it's just ear-catching with those crazy little digital sounds. To me, it’s this really playful, whimsical way to start this song that is ultimately kind of heavy. There's also a vocal throughout the whole song that I recorded with my friend, Omisha- It's like that James Blake thing where you slow the whole song down and then speed it back up, and it gets a high-pitched vocal. To me, it was like this little response, like a nagging voice that was kind of representing my inner dialogue. So I really love those moments that you can pick out.
The cover art I thought was really, really cool. Can you talk a little bit about your vision behind that?
MARCUM: So my roommate, Chloe Southern, who also makes music, took that picture. We were in our roommate’s room with a digital camera, and she was just moving the camera back and forth, which was giving a double exposure kind of effect. So there's two of me and the photo has no editing on it, which is cool. I love it if you cannot touch something. For the drawing on it– through one of my internet-induced rabbit holes, I found this artist. Their name is Paige, and their blog/graphic design website is called DA HOLOGRAM, and their work is literally incredible. I slid in to their DM’s and was like, “I'm such a fan of yours, would you ever want to collaborate?” They ended up drawing the cover by just listening to the song. Their style is really whimsical. They also have this blog on their website called Time Spirals that talks about the creative process. They live here in New York, and they have really cool art on their website, and they do great graphic design. So it was another way to collaborate with another artist whose work I wanted to share with other people.
Was there anything striking that you learned about yourself as an artist or as a human being in the process of making this song?
MARCUM: Yes. After every element I would add to this song, I would have a breakdown, and I would say I hated it. I just needed to take space away from it and then come back to it. I was sinking deeper into this hole of obsession and perfection over the song because I had all this pressure on it, being my first independent release and my first solo production. It showed me a lot about the good side of that - I just really care. The bad side is that making music is a messy process and it’s nonlinear. That's a perfect question for this song, because it showed me so much.
What do you hope listeners take away from hearing the song?
MARCUM: I hope people enjoy it. I hope that people engage with it. It's non-traditional - there's no chorus and there's no drums and there’s all these elements creating tension. But I hope that it feels exciting to somebody who maybe thinks it challenges the perception of music having to be a certain structure or a certain form.
What’s next for you? Do you have any collaborations or future projects that you're excited about?
MARCUM: I have two really great shows in November. On November 9, I’m at Bowery Electric, with The Nancys and Babe City, and Buboy. On November 12, there's a show with Hudson Freeman and Camille Schmidt, and Deloyd Elze. I also have a song on a compilation album for a label called Happen Twice, coming out November 11, and a portion of the proceeds are going to Mental Health Alliance, which supports artist mental-health resources.