‘Losing Our Connection’ - Mari Dangerfield’s ‘Webcam’
In the U.K., we’re now getting to the point of everything we took for granted before beginning to open back up again. But there was a time in the pandemic when, for the safety of everyone around us, it was best if social interaction remained online. One would argue that we were in a reasonably good place technology-wise to maintain social relationships in this way, through video-calling. I think I speak for everyone though when I say the novelty soon wore off, and we all realised that true social interaction could never be replaced. Mari Dangerfield’s latest single ‘Webcam’ explores this issue.
Image Credit: Paula Llagostera
In a world where people worry about silly things like the guitar dying out, Mari Dangerfield has forged a career using an instrument that people rarely discuss – the stylophone. The stylophone is a handheld electronic instrument in the vague style of a regular keyboard, but it’s operated by using a stylus where the metal on the tip contacts with the metallic keys and creates a circuit. The original manufacturing run was short-lived and most famously used on David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’, but it’s twenty-first century relaunch is how the instrument became easily accessible to Mari Dangerfield.
In 2017, Dangerfield won a competition created by French composer Yann Tiersen where she covered his song ‘Porz Goret’, winning in the Best Non-Piano category. She’s also posted covers on her YouTube channel in pop music, from First Aid Kit and The Beatles to Dodie and Gary Numan. Her vlogs explain the ins and outs of the different models of stylophones available, as well as giving a behind-the-scenes look at her music. Mari Dangerfield’s first single, ‘Virtually’ was released in September 2018.
In early 2019, Mari recorded and performed with The Stylophone Orchestra and continued to release more music including ‘Dear Admirer’, ‘Hardwired’ and ‘Love Machine’. Dangerfield rounded out 2019 with her track ‘Enough’, and went on to release her single ‘Arrow’ in the summer of 2020 while working on new music over the course of the pandemic. Mari’s single ‘1 Like’ was her first in 2021.
Written, recorded and produced entirely by Mari, ‘1 Like’ starts with the kind of bossa nova beat manufacturers included on the in-built drum machines of vintage electric organs. Dangerfield’s added vocal reminds me of The Wannadies’ ‘You and Me Song’ except I never would’ve considered it to be sung by a chorus of sheep without Mari’s brilliant music video.
One of the things about the pandemic is that it’s forced people to get creative where music videos are concerned. Mari’s pandemic-era music videos are much different to those she’s made before and this one is no exception, where green screen could be credited as a co-star in Leigh Kemp’s designs.
The theme of 1 Like plays on the idea of the happiness we’ve conditioned ourselves to feel when somebody ‘likes’ a social media post of ours, whatever the platform might be. This is really fleshed out in the chorus: ‘The dopamine, it hits me like a dream, I'm like a deer in the headlights. Oh you show up, and fill my cup, with one thumbs up, in a million.’ The arrangement in the verses almost sounds orchestral, which is a rarity in electronic music that often comes across as one-dimensional.
Despite the worrying nature of the lyric showing how social media is an ever-increasing presence in our lives, I can’t help but feel uplifted by 1 Like. Perhaps it’s the music itself, Mari’s melody and arrangement, or her ability to make light of the situation in her lyrics and music video.
‘Webcam’ is like the story is further down the line, and the reliance on that virtual dopamine hit is wearing off. The first verse in particular is highly relatable:
“I’m tired of seeing you on webcam, ‘cause I think we could be more. I’m tired of living two-dimensional, I feel like I’m living in a cell house. I’m sick of losing our connection, I miss the way things were before. Instead of looking for connection, you could have been outside my front door.”
Mari Dangerfield also makes references to George Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’, which has been exhaustively referenced to by the media since the pandemic began for all the wrong reasons. The romantic side to Dangerfield’s writing is also present, and while online dating existed prior to the pandemic, the lockdown restrictions introduced further barriers that are alien to twenty-first century life.
Mari explores the isolation factor brought about by lockdown in her self-produced music video for Webcam. Her bedroom acts as a ‘cell house’, where a camera fixates in one top corner, watching the mundane moments playing out. You do get a snippet of Dangerfield playing the stylophone too, and the great thing about her production is that Mari incorporates her signature instrument without making it tremendously obvious she’s doing so. With mixing and mastering by Diogo Almeida on both Webcam and 1 Like, it’s incredible that Dangerfield accomplished so much in her sonic approach just from her bedroom. With a full album on the way, I can only imagine how much deeper the creative rabbit-hole goes.
1. Your new single 'Webcam' makes many a mention of Nineteen Eighty-Four, do you think the comparisons drawn between the novel and the pandemic are warranted?
I think what I meant in that lyric was the kind of parallels we can draw between lockdown life where we suddenly found ourselves increasingly dependent on technology for pretty much everything, which is undeniably used to track us, and wanting to get away from that, and the surveillance culture portrayed in the novel. Also the way that lockdowns accelerated our dependence on tech and the way in which particularly social media has made aspects of Nineteen Eighty-Four a stark reality today.
2. Did you have someone specific in mind when you wrote 'Webcam'?
Webcam is loosely based on a mixture of my own experiences of being far away from people I care about and what I imagine the struggles of a blossoming relationship gone online would be.
3. I think the video captures lockdown life well, is this an accurate depiction of pandemic life for Mari Dangerfield?
Haha! I've definitely spent way too much time at home and doing crazy laps around my garden, but mostly keeping busy with music and content which has been a really nice escape from the outside world.
4. '1 Like' just makes me smile - what was the inspiration for that track?
:) One of the things I really enjoy is finding weird feelings that aren't covered a lot in songwriting to try and capture and 1 Like is meant to capture that feeling that social media manipulates us with. When we get a notification that someone has liked a post or left a comment we can get quite excited about it, even more so if it's someone that we have romantic inclinations towards because we want to take it as a sign that they're interested too in that sense, but in reality it's mostly just a big dopamine hit that quickly fades and is meaningless.
5. Equally, the music video is brilliant. Did you always have the vision as it's presented here, or were there other ideas for a different kind of video?
It was always going to be a cartoonish video and something that suited my limitations as I knew I was going to have to film it mostly alone during the pandemic. The ideas that we (myself and my collaborator, Leigh Kemp) started with did change a little bit by the time we came to getting it done; we were originally going to have a bouncing ball, inspired by a music video from one of my favourite bands, instead of thumbs all over everything, but it didn't quite look as good as we thought it would when it came to the edit, so it ended up leaning more towards a disney sing-a-long VHS style which worked well I think!
6. I saw you play a livestream with Rachel Still and Kayleigh Cheer whose Wahl music I've written about before. How did you first meet those ladies?
That livestream was probably my favourite thing I've ever done! - Rachel and Kayleigh are very talented and their music as Wahl is brilliant.
About four years ago I was offered the chance to learn about analogue music production with record producer Tony Visconti in a few sessions - Kayleigh was recording drums for the band. Rachel turned up as well and we both ended up doing backing vocals on it which was fun!
7. I first found you because of a stylophone fascination. When did your stylophone journey begin?
I bought a stylophone about five years ago because I saw David Bowie had one and I thought it could be cool to use for my music. I ended up making lots of cover videos with it on YouTube before I released any music, which was a great way for me to discover how I wanted to use it.
8. Time to nerd out. How many stylophones do you have and what models are they?
Wooo! Thanks so much for getting me to look through my cupboard and count them - I think it was about time!!
I have 11:
One new S-1
Four old S-1s
Two Gen X-1s
One Beatbox
One mini
One Vintage White
One 350s!
9. Perhaps we'll start seeing venues opening up in 2021? Can fans expect to see some Mari Dangerfield live performances in the future?
I really hope so! I'm going to need to spend some time figuring out how to make them happen...
10. You have more music coming out in 2021! Are you able to give us a title or a clue to any of it?
There's definitely a running theme with the songs I've been releasing and hopefully it'll become clear, if it isn't already ;)
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Follow Mari across social media on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter @maridangerfield.
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