Brooklyn singer-songwriter Marla Mase releases The Midnight Show, Act I via True Groove Records, the first part of a two-part musical journey into the contradictions of the human condition.
Dark, cinematic, and visceral, the new EP from Brooklyn singer-songwriter Marla Mase is a work that refuses to sit still. The Midnight Show, Act I arrives on 20 November 2026 through True Groove Records, and it marks the first instalment of a two-part musical journey that explores the contradictions at the heart of being human.
Mase is a magnetic performer with a fearless creative vision. For three decades she has moved fluidly between music, theatre and performance art. A native Brooklynite, she emerged as a recording artist in the early 2000s and has since released nine LPs, performing everywhere from the Bowery to Beijing. Her music balances vulnerability with grit, poetry with defiance, and humour with devastation, often all within the same breath. She is a difficult artist to pigeonhole. Her sound can be rock ‘n’ roll one moment and spoken word set to music the next, but whatever form her art takes, it is never less than compelling.
The Midnight Show, Act I opens a new chapter for her. It was recorded at Black Corleone Studios in Brooklyn, mixed by James Dellatacoma at the legendary Orange Music Sound Studio and mastered by Michael Fossenkemper at Turtletone Studio. The EP explores love, independence, growing older, mental health, and the darker consequences of carelessness and denial, and it keeps the visceral honesty that has defined her work from the start.
Mase describes the record as a conversation between two sides of the self. “The Midnight Show – Act I is exactly that. The first act is a conflation of the two extremes that live both inside and outside our heads: the energetic, excitable, fearless voice that wants to empower, warn, and protect, and the more melancholic, gentler voice that is seeking understanding and compassion. It’s a cautionary tale about where the pitfalls and the wreckage of our carelessness, arrogance, and denial will lead us if we don’t start paying attention to what’s going on in and around us.”
Perhaps the most revealing glimpse into the EP is its closing title track, The Midnight Show, which Mase says is the only song she has ever written in a dream. A Lynchian-inspired song about a couple, one living with depression and the other a powerless caretaker, it grows into an allegory for collective depression and powerlessness. She woke after hours of dreaming about a particular melody and lyric, grabbed a guitar despite barely playing the instrument, and switched on her voice recorder. What followed seemed to arrive fully formed. Years later, while working on material for her new album with co-writer and producer Tomás Doncker, she remembered that recording. The dream became the title track and the emotional endpoint of Act I.
Ahead of the EP, Mase released her reimagining of The Pixies’ “Monkey Gone to Heaven”. The idea came about after Tomás Doncker, founder of True Groove Records, rediscovered the album Doolittle while hunting for vinyl on tour in the UK. “While on tour in the UK, I bought a copy of Doolittle by The Pixies on vinyl,” Doncker says. “I jumped at the chance to have this classic album once again in my collection. When ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’ came roaring through the speakers, it was immediately obvious to me that Marla should cover it and include it on her upcoming release. Given her ongoing work in theatre and her thought-provoking spoken word and performance art, I knew it would be a powerful addition to her varied and vibrant catalogue.”
The second instalment, The Midnight Show, Act II, is planned for Spring 2027. It moves further into the Lynchian atmosphere of the first act, but in a markedly softer, more introspective direction. Where Act I wrestles with volatility, anger and the collision of competing voices, Act II turns towards break-ups, loss and what Mase describes as the spiritual gift hidden within profound grief: stillness. Together, the two acts form a larger portrait of the emotional extremes that shape both private lives and the world beyond them.
The Midnight Show, Act I is due for release on 20 November 2026 via True Groove Records and will be available on all major streaming platforms. It is a record that asks its listener to pay attention and rewards them for doing so.
For further information on the artist, please visit the following links:
- https://www.marlamase.com/
- https://www.facebook.com/marlamase
- https://x.com/marlamase
- https://www.instagram.com/marlamaseofficial
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