Name: MAITA at Mississippi Studios
Start: 2024-12-13T21:00:00-07:00
Location: Mississippi Studios

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When Maria Maita-Keppeler was in college, she studied the ancient art of Japanese woodblock printmaking. “By the nature of the medium, you have to be bold,” she says — but, you also have to be delicate, deliberate, exacting. All those little cuts on their own add up to the whole — to a picture, a story, a life.

The Japanese-American singer-songwriter applies that same approach to her band, MAITA; she only writes songs she intends to finish. She only makes cuts in service of the whole. And once the debris has been blown away, the melodies remain — vibrant, sharp, and often heartbreaking. The band’s latest LP, want, out July 25 via Fluff & Gravy Records, is all of the above. A razor’s edge look at a relationship in turmoil, the record serves to strip away everything undesired in Maita-Keppeler’s life, leaving behind only that titular word: want.

“The album allowed me this opportunity to be a little more courageous about my feelings,” Maita-Keppeler says. “I grew up feeling very much like the peacekeeper. Now, I have to be really assertive about what I want for myself.” See? Bold.

A Eugene, Oregon native, Maita-Keppeler grew up straddling American and Japanese culture; her father was the former, her mother the latter. Still, both parents contributed to her musical exploration — mom and dad played guitar, while Maita-Keppeler’s mother wrote songs in the language of her homeland. Skilled in violin and guitar, Maita-Keppeler really keyed into music when she started listening to early aughts indie songwriters like Bright Eyes, Elliott Smith, and Regina Spektor. She then set out getting over her stage fright via open mic stints, and started writing her own songs in lieu of a fateful book report.

Recorded at Echo Echo in Portland, Oregon in the winter of 2022, the record serves as the most crystallized of MAITA’s works thus far; like Maita-Keppeler’s screen prints, which she does for each song she writes, it’s a stark, arresting image of a place in lost time. “We felt like the songwriting had a kind of visceral quality to it,” she says. “I love high highs and low lows.” Through it all, though, runs the theme of wanting. “These songs all explore desire within the framework of a long-term relationship where you're just trying to push and dig deeper,” Maita-Keppeler says. “I feel like not a lot of songs really get to the core of those struggles and how nuanced they actually are.”