Maria Chiara Argirò (pronounced ma-REE-ah key-AH-rah r-gee-ROW) marks herself out as an exciting new name in electronic, jazz-fusion. When she was starting out in Rome, Maria was one of the very few women in the scene she could think of. “All my life I’ve been surrounded by men,” she says. “But when you’re 15, you don’t really think about being the only woman. Now I see many more women in electronic and jazz music but back then, it wasn’t the case at all.” She moved to London over a decade ago to immerse herself in the music scene; in Italy, she says, “I wanted to find my own path.”

After quietly weaving her way around the UK jazz, classical and electronic worlds, the trained pianist (since the age of nine) has now cemented herself as a key player in the capital’s multi-national jazz scene. Maria has released a few solo and collaborative records (Flow was The Guardian’s jazz album of the month and nominated as album of the year in the Jazz Revelations Awards), but her forthcoming album, Forest City feels like the turning of a page as she liberates herself from the structures of jazz.

On Forest City, Maria finds a glistening thread between these movements: where jazz meets Kelly Lee Owens, Jon Hopkins and Radiohead. It’s a concept record, about the “duality of nature and city”, where organic sounds and textures seem to flow above the urban sprawl.

Maria had finished writing the album before the first lockdown but the enforced isolation helped to give the music a sense of urgency, a longing to be immersed in the natural world and the buzz of the city at the same time. The songs always start as something she can play acoustically, that would work without the bells and whistles, and then she layers the atmosphere around them.

Though the album has dark undertones, it’s not all doom and gloom: in her earthy metropolis, a certain optimism glows through. “It’s about being conscious of the world we live in and how careful we need to be,” Maria explains. “At the end of the day, there is hope”.

Her new, warm and house-inflected single “Bonsai”came spontaneously. Maria reveals, “The main theme and melodies came out of an improvisation I had on my Yamaha CS reface over the first rhythmic synth idea. I remember trying many different sounds playing on my laptop, on Ableton and some VST, focussing on having a playful time rather than being too worried and conscious of the outcome. I wanted to create a playful dance floor track, but I also needed a drastic and big drop to happen at a certain point, like a wake-up call: the trumpet sounded like the best choice to get this “shouting” moment and drop. Like falling.”

Forest City sees its release via Innovative Leisureon May 6th. To pre-order / pre-save the album, go here. This month, Maria is wrapping up a UK tour with Emma-Jean Thackray – more dates to be announced. 

Photo Courtesy: Alexandra Waespi