CELIIN - 'Marilyn'
Photo credit: Anders Skjetnemark
Referring to your tracks as ‘love letters’ might well appear twee to the uninitiated, but Norway’s Celiin couldn’t be less twee if she tried. Since emerging in 2019 with her debut single ‘Leonardo’, and the first of her First of the Love Letters Trilogy, Celiin has made a name for herself crafting exquisitely understated alt-pop offerings that bridge the gap between romance and depression. The latest of which, ‘Marylin’ not only concludes the trilogy, but also finds Celiin at her darkest and most primal.
A love letter more to oneself than anyone else, and an almost diaristic take on self-destructive behaviour and the anxieties from which they manifest, ‘Marylin’ is three of minutes of dark, brooding electro-pop that feels both as bold and as fragile as the storyteller in question.
“If beautiful things don’t ask for attention, why do I feel the need to scream…?” questions Celiin, summing up perfectly the track’s fragility, whilst paradoxically signalling the point in which ‘Marylin’ truly blossoms; encompassing electronics emerging to create steadfast walls of synth, both cloying and claustrophobic in their emergence, and perfectly at odds with the vulnerability buried within the vocals.
Indeed, where the other two tracks across the trilogy appear to have definite recipients, ‘Marylin’ feels both introspective and universal, allowing Celiin to both exercise her own demons, while providing some much needed resonance for those harbouring similar feelings of self-doubt and habits of self-destruction. Though tough to describe as optimistic, ‘Marylin’ does provide plenty of emotional catharsis, and god knows we all could do with more of that this year.
Words of Dave Beech