Los Angeles’ Mackin Carroll has released his new single “Black Hole Song,” a breakup song inspired by outer space. It was written at the beginning of the end of a romantic relationship, right around when NASA took the first picture of a black hole. This got Carroll thinking about matter and energy and where that matter goes when it passes through a black hole. Does it just disappear? Just like a relationship, where does the love go when it leaves? The song contemplates this thought over a drum machine and some echoey guitars. This song is off his forthcoming debut album Learning to Swim out November 12th.
Carroll’s eclectic singer-songwriter songs range in subject from things like outer space, to breakfast foods, to utter heartbreak - all sung in a voice that’s both jagged and sweet. Harkening back to the melancholia of 00’s indie artists Carroll’s songs, drenched in folk and searing with indie-rock spirit, are deeply personal and riddled with both offbeat metaphors and illustrious melodies. If his influences were carpooling, Conor Oberst would be driving, Sufjan Stevens would call shotgun, and Jeff Tweedy and Ben Gibbard would be staring out the windows in the back seat, while Ben Folds was tied up in the trunk.
Raised in the suburbs of Southern California Carroll cut his teeth in garage bands, playing the bass guitar and shouting poetry that he wrote in his bedroom or in the back of math class over scrappy, juvenile jams. These days, Carroll, often clad in a skirt or dress (wearing traditionally female clothing helps him feel free) .always catches fire live, shouting and whispering, transcending and connecting. He studied bass in college and spent a summer busking in Galway, Ireland after getting kicked off of a farm while crafting some of the songs for this record. In addition to this record, he does the score for a’ Dungeons & Dragons podcast, has scored a short film, and has had a podcast called “Happy Sad Talk Thing," he’s done for five years where he interviews other creatives, gets personal, and mostly says silly shit while messing around on the Wurlitzer patch on his keyboard.
