Even in the fully globalized music scene of 2025, some places retain a distinct hyperlocal sound that will forever be attached to them. These sounds reflect the unique geography, history, and culture of their home turf, sharing a vibe that cuts through miles, mountains, and oceans. Even if we can’t completely describe these sounds and feelings, we certainly recognize them in a primal way. Santa Cruz, with its magical combination of coastal surf, California cool, and sometimes competing influences of San Francisco and Los Angeles, is one of those special places.
Even decades after the psychedelic and progressive revolutions of the 1960s and 1970s, Santa Cruz is home to a busy music scene that draws from jazz, krautrock, heavy metal, and prog rock for a sound that’s irresistibly mind-bending and groovy. Echoes of California’s rich musical history abound, captured in trippy beats and smoky rhythms, forever sprawling into electric new sounds. It’s here, amidst the Pacific waves and bustling boardwalk, that we find Marmalade Knives.
Grounded in their home turf and determined to explore the cosmos, Marmalade Knives produces a heady strain of heavy freak-rock that could only originate from Santa Cruz. Now divided among the two coasts, the band find themselves on the furthest reaches of time and space on their upcoming sophomore album, Paradigm Lost. Today, we reveal the next chapter with their new single, “Maya.”
Smoky California cool languidly infuses jazzy psychedelia and cosmic rock rhythms, somehow building tension and urgency while still remaining lost in space. Arcing guitars lance through off-kilter beats like neon lights shining through hazy midnight air, giving us a guiding light to nowhere. If Paradigm Lost is an progressive trip across the galaxy to a lost kingdom, “Maya” is the dark incantation that starts our journey. Gripping, groovy, and ever-so-subtly unsettling, the track captures the nervous excitement in your gut before launching headfirst into the unknown.
Marmalade Knives shared the inspiration behind their new single:
“‘Maya,’ the second song on Paradigm Lost, is a meditation on the illusory nature of reality and the creative force that produces such an enthralling matrix. The song's interweaving guitar lines and flowing unfurling rhythms are heavily influenced by the great krautrock band Popol Vuh, a group whose name is a serendipitous cross-reference to a sacred Mayan text, making a kind of ouroboros of all these associations.”
Paradigm Lost will be released on September 26th via Electric Valley Records (North American vinyl via Glory or Death Records). Pre-order the album on Bandcamp and follow Marmalade Knives on Facebook or Instagram.