Consuming the Tangible

A brief, instrumental reprieve before we go into next week (and I finally remember to get my Best of 2025 post out) as well as formally saying the site refresh is done (for now, hope you all dig it). Both More Eaze and Claire Rousay were unknown to me before their collaboration on No Floor, but after hearing the delicate beauty of these sound collages, I’ve started digging into both artists’ discographies. This is a case of an album’s artwork perfectly complementing the music within: soft, haunting melodies floating in and out of a wash of ambience.

It’s difficult to talk about this music. I don’t know where to start, so let’s start by talking about how I discovered No Floor. Like so many of my discoveries, it came from my friends. “Hopfields” opens with acoustic guitar, reminding me of both Pink Floyd and Christopher Cross, and it brings to the foreground of my head my insecurity that of all my friends, I’m the “basic” one when it comes to music: sure, my tastes are broad but never in the same way as everyone else. The fact that I get a Christopher Cross vibe from the arpeggiated chords confirms it.

At 30 minutes, the album doesn’t rush by so much as it knows exactly how long each piece needs to be to get its message across. After the repeated figure that ends “Hopfields,” the album moves to “Kinda Tropical,” and with the field recordings of water in the background, I guess you could call this “kinda tropical,” but what comes across to my ears and heart is a kind of dark, wondrous narrative of someone walking a post-apocalyptic landscape, soundtracked by Angelo Badalamenti. I’m not sure who is doing what; both Eaze (actual name Mari Maurice Rubio according to Bandcamp) and Rousay are experimental artists and friends from Texas (although Rousay is Canadian-born), and according to some of the reviews I’ve read, the album is a collaborative, sonic tapestry of their lives and friendship, documenting various establishments the pair have visited over the years. If so, am I slightly concerned by the menace that seems to stem from “The Applebees Outside Kalamazoo, Michigan” despite its amusing title? Somewhat, but I also can feel a deeper connection to that unease that comes with too much noise and overstimulation, and the insular drawing I do to manage it, often by drawing closer to whoever I trust who is with me in those moments.

Maybe that’s what More Eaze and Claire Rousay are doing here. Having both grown up and coming out as trans in the South I can imagine the need to forge that kind of a bond, something psychic and close that can stand for words that don’t come easily. The strains of “Lowcountry” hit and I find myself falling back into another spin of the record.

As I do I’ll think about whether I’m actually bothered by my admittedly self-imposed “basic” label and I suppose I’ll start another day.