September, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 37
SOUNDS LIKE:Nineties-era
indie rock delivered with wit and
a refreshing sexual candidness
FOR FANS OF:Wolf Alice, the
Big Moon, Sharon Van Etten
WHY YOU SHOULD PAY AT-
TENTION:Twenty-five-year-old
Hackman was brought up in the
English countryside, enjoying
a musical upbringing. (“My
parents and brother are really
musical and would play a lot
when we were growing up,” she
says.) A multi-instrumentalist
also proficient in playing bass
and drums, Hackman began
piano lessons at fi ve; at age 14,
she taught herself to play guitar
to “defeat the boredom of liv-ing in the middle of nowhere”.
Her 2015 debut album,We
Slept at Last, was a set of dark-
hued folk; its follow-up,I’m Not
Your Man, recorded with friends
the Big Moon as her back-
ing band, is a foray into fully
fleshed-out rock. “Making a
heavier, band-focused album is
something I’ve always wanted
to do,” she says. “It was really
cool recording with friends, and
you can hear that sense of fun
on the record.”
The album also expresses the
singer-songwriter’s sexuality
with newfound confi dence: “I
think people wanna see other
people being brave – if you seesomeone bare their soul and
have a good time, then people
are a lot quicker to connect
with it.”
SHE SAYS:“It’s
really liberating
[being candid
about being gay]
and it has opened
up a whole new
door in my brain
in terms of where
I can go with
songwriting. It
also feels really
empowering when
I’m on stage singing those lyr-
ics. It’s a cool feeling, but it was
also scary at fi rst when theselyrics started coming out of
nowhere. I made the decision to
not self-edit and just be really
frank, and that was
quite an intimidat-
ing prospect – but
I actually think it’s
one of the best
things I’ve ever
done.”
HEAR FOR YOUR-
SELF:
The crunchy, con-
fessional rock & roll
of the just-released
LP I’m Not Your
Man. “I found my swagger,” says
Hackman, “and I’m enjoying it.”(^) JAMES JENNINGS
Marika Hackman
“It’s really
liberating
(being candid
about being
gay) and it has
opened a whole
new door in my
brain.”