Every week, the Milwaukee Music Premiere sponsored by Density Studios connects the city’s artists with our listening audience. If you’re an artist with a track you’d like us to debut exclusively on Radio Milwaukee, head over to our Music Submission page to learn how.
A Milwaukee folk legend in the making, Maximiano is an artistically rich Americana musician whose critically acclaimed debut album, The Real Truth, brought a set of heartwrenchingly honest folk tunes to the city. Their success allowed for an extensive year of touring and artistic collaboration from which their new record, Rokeby, emerged — reinforced by a 10-day respite of dogsitting in the Hudson Valley that landscaped their heart and soul.
In “I Will Not Abandon the River,” Maximiano’s new single from the upcoming album, they engage with the cyclical nature of love that’s easy to get lost in. Mirroring nature's own cycle of mountains rising and falling, Maximiano remains loyal to not being scared of the heart's own peaks and valleys.
It’s a tonally rustic arrangement that relies on simplicity to drive its poignancy. But that doesn’t mean the piece is basic. It arrives as a well-crafted combination of technique and vision that expertly channels Maximiano’s own musical tendencies.
The track opens with a fingerpicking acoustic chord progression over birds singing. It reels the listener in with a delightful ambiance that seeps into the back of the mind as the vocals float their way in:
I thought this place was lonely, but I was just alone
A ragged bag of poems patchwork pattern skin and bone
Playacting like I’d never had a taste of love
Truth is, I ate so much I just remember throwing up
Overindulgence can manifest from a place of fear — trying so hard to take in everything because of what lies in the unknown. It’s in this self-doubt that the track opens up via different sonic elements. Taking in this song almost requires you to purposefully silence the brain, because so much complexity is hidden. If you do, the reward is what emerges, knowing exactly what its purpose is.
A bright mandolin and a deep bass enter at the end of the verse, but what’s most engaging is the sound of leaves in the wind set deep below the instrumentation. It’s a textural reward for those who listen deeply yet adds so much substance and charm that it forces the audience to balance their own thoughts with the music, providing tranquility as you sit amongst the trees:
I came here for the river, and for a tragic love
That showed me how pathetic my affection had become
I learned that river-wailing can ease the body’s fear
But now beside the Hudson, wailing’s all that I can hear
I will not abandon the river
Just because it makes me feel
Everything I ran away from
Back when I was living here
With a set of sweet vocal harmonies and a swelling soundscape, the chorus soaks the listener in catharsis. It’s like sitting in a wave pool watching the tide come closer and closer. Everyone who enters knows exactly what they’re getting into, but that slight heart flutter still sparks, and the water forever catches you off-guard:
This morning on the way to get a coffee from the bakery
I saw a couple hanging off each other, lusting in the street
And I saw past the hips and kisses, I saw something that was green
The wild abandon of surrender to a shared body
I will not abandon the mountains
Just because they make me feel
Everything I ran away from
Back when I was living here
Back when I was living here
At its core, “I Will Not Abandon the River” is a song about wanting to live. Maximiano pushes the idea of waking up in the morning as an active choice akin to choosing to love anything. Nature has a balance, and so does every individual, so it’s up to everyone to choose if they want to keep running away from life’s bounty or sit in nature's balance and try again.
Jonathan Joseph is a Milwaukee-based multimedia freelance journalist who specializes in art and culture writing (and all things Milwaukee), with work appearing on Radio Milwaukee and in Milwaukee Magazine. Contact him via email or find him on LinkedIn.