Tomorrow, June 25th, 2021, Melbourne/Naarm-based singer/songwriter, Maple Glider (aka Tori Zietsch), will release her debut album, To Enjoy is the Only Thing, via Partisan Records. Today, she appears in glittering purple boots in the “Friend” video (dir. by Athina Wilson). Watch her muster up the most delicate confrontation of a decaying friendship HERE, and pre-save/pre-order the album HERE.

While still light and gorgeous, “Friend” gives you the palpable weight of a personal relationship tugging her down in the way she delivers “I am quickly blending into all of my fear and doubt.” Zietsch adds, “This song is for an old, good friend. In some ways it feels like one of the most personal songs on the album. I knew I wanted to write it for a long time, before I finally did. It’s a reflection of some of my experience in the music industry from the age of sixteen or so, before Maple Glider existed, and the story of a friendship intertwined inside of each of our shiny music dreams. It was turbulent and unbalanced, and we both became a little undone within it. A lot of hurt and healing came to the surface after years of close collaboration, and ‘Friend’ is the result of that.”

Over plucked acoustic guitar or deftly weighted piano chords, Zietsch shares vignettes of her life throughout To Enjoy is the Only Thing; growing up in a restrictive religious household, falling in and out of love, cross-country and international travel, longing, alienation, and more. Moments both unremarkable and life-altering, but always deeply felt, brought to vivid life by the beauty of Tori’s artistry and wry sense of dark humor. It’s an album full of brittle intimacies and effortlessly balanced instrumentation (not a note wasted)

Spoken only as she could, Zietsch describes the collection as, “Walking past tinsel covered trees in mid-September, swimming along the calanques in the south of France, car-bonnet frost, darkness at 4pm, lightness until 10pm, a muted feeling, the perpetual grey fog that swallows the Silver Coast, the colour red, this ugly green dress, red wine, red blood, red lips, red is the colour of the cardinal’s robe, Switzerland, my mother’s diaries, a coroner’s report, the sun on my face, the end of love, “To enjoy is the only thing. BTCH$.'”

Zietsch only started releasing singles last fall, “As Tradition,” “Good Thing,” Swimming,” and “Baby Tiger,” yet she has connected easily and earnestly with a global fanbase. Partnering with labels Pieater (in Australia) and Partisan (ROW), Zietsch now has fans at NPR Music, Stereogum, NME, The Line Of Best Fit, Paste, KCRW, Gorilla vs Bear, Consequence, triple j, UPROXX, and more, for her devastating yet piercingly beautiful music, as well as over 3 million streams, a sold out debut headline set and opening slots for Julia Jacklin and Angie McMahon.

“Friend” by Maple Glider is out now (watch here) from To Enjoy Is the Only Thing out tomorrow June 25th, 2021 via Partisan Records, pre-save/pre-order here.

*Bundles include a tie-dye tee with the LP logo up-titled to To “Fang It” is the Only Thing (a cheeky, personal saying of Tori’s that also inspired one of her tattoos).*