LONGMEADOW — Local singer-songwriter and social media content creator Mariel Darling has released her newest single, “Kettle Corn”. This song is near and dear to Darling’s heart as well as signifying a new era of her music.
Darling said, “Kettle Corn is a really fun, loving, electro-indie, pop summer song that I’ve been waiting to release. It’s a cute little play on words and metaphor for what actually makes an exciting, healthy relationship.”
She went on to say, “My new music will be leaning more into an indie/country-pop era and less electronic. This past year, I have found such a love of breaking down the music creation process, writing things that really come from the heart and the sounds are a little bit more grounding.”
Born and raised in Longmeadow, Darling has been recording her own music since she was 9. She is best recognized for her popular singles, “No Mirror”, “Unknown” and “New Scene”. Darling has worked with numerous Grammy award-winning and established producers such as Mike Check of Kids of the Forest, Cass Dillon, Shaun Bless Owens of SoulDiggaz and Aaron Reid from HitCo Records. She’s been living in New York for five years and just finished her master’s degree at New York University from the Gallatin School of Individualized Studies where she concentrated on Songwriting and Pop Culture Studies.
She’s also in the early stages of writing a book based on her master’s thesis, Blonde: Birthed or Bottled, a cultural analysis of what the hair color blonde means in western society from the Ice Age to the Golden Age of Hollywood to pop stars and even artificial intelligence. From science, genealogy, biology, personal branding, social media and the entertainment industries.
Darling’s writing style has changed and is confident in her ability to be not just a storyteller, but a songteller through music and lyrics. She participated in songwriters’ forums where she worked with different styles and different types of musicians. Darling told Reminder Publishing she pushed her boundaries and it paid off; making her an efficient and stronger writer, hence why Darling feels she has a musical rebirth that hopefully will be starting in the fall. Darling is continuing to navigate what it’s going to be like not being a student and fully immerse herself into her craft as a singer/songwriter. She’ll be able to spend more time in the studio writing more music and hopefully performing. Along with taking the time to figure out what it means to be an author and how to find her own writer’s voice with her writer’s tone as an author.
“A lot of this next year is going to be finding myself and through that I’ll be creating art,” said Darling. “Whether it’s writing my book or writing more music, so I think people following me are going to be able to go on that journey with me to see where I started and where I’m going.”
“Kettle Corn” is available on all music streaming platforms. It’s also available on YouTube for those who don’t have streaming platforms. Find Darling on social media platforms @mariel_darling and on streaming platforms by searching her name Mariel Darling.
