mar|co

Comprised of singer Marie Lang and producer Alex Coco, Boston-based duo mar|co is off to quite a flying start with their highly sedative debut single entitled “Bridges”. Like many new acts we come across, we've little in the way of specific information about them, but we’re quite confident that their sound here has already developed a brilliant foundation for the two to work later upon.

Lang’s vocals are undeniably the first discussion point on the track here, as they’re immersive to listeners from all ends of their self-described "future pop" spectrum. Her lyricism is one pinpointing tolerance and distress simultaneously, and Coco’s production engulfs the themes with his slow yet subtly buoyant cadence. Their contributions each coalesce into an incredibly solid first step together, and we'd love much to hear subsequent efforts off the back of it. - HillyDilly

The SXSW Festival is underway in Austin, Texas, and Boston is getting some love thanks to Berklee College of Music. For the 11th year, Berklee is holding its official SXSW Party: Boston and Beyond at Austin’s Brush Square Park West Tent on Thursday from noon to 6 p.m. The event is presented by The Red Room @ Cafe 939, Alumni Affairs, Heavy Rotation Records, and media sponsor Vanyaland, which will be streaming the event at Vanyaland.com and at VanyaRadio. Berklee alumni and students will be performing at the event including the Seattle-based band Great Grandpa, IAN (a solo project by alum Jilian Medford), Lady Pills, mar|co (singer Marie Lang and producer Alex Coco), Plastic Waves (featuring Andre Bellido and a passel of other students), and RANN. - Boston Globe

Perhaps the best part about discovering a new band or musical project, other than listening to the music itself, is not knowing the backstory. Familiarity breeds the same old anecdote, the same old liner note regurgitation, and same old genre tags and lazy descriptions copy and pasted from previous articles and spotlights. Familiar is boring. Familiar becomes its own story, and detaches itself from the music.

Freshly-minted Boston duo mar | co probably have a backstory, probably have some interesting anecdotes, and probably will provide an endless stream of compound adjectives that christen a whole new genre of electronic pop. But we know none of it and certainly have no time for the last bit. Instead, we’re left with the music of Marie Lang and Alex Coco, which they dub “future pop,” and the music is enough to fill our imaginations.

After posting some of their inaugural tracks to Soundcloud a few weeks ago, today mar | co released new single “Closer,” and it’s an emotive sprawl of minimal pop and textured, echo-like sounds.

We’re sure we’ll learn a lot more about this project in the next few weeks, but as it stands now, their identity is based around some intriguing and compelling compositions. - Vanyaland