Mary Ocher was born in Moscow in 1986, raised in Tel Aviv, and has called Berlin home for nearly 20 years. As a result, the singer, musician, and songwriter – who happens to sing in English – has accumulated a wealth of unique experiences, born at a crucial juncture during the Cold War, as well as refusing the IDF draft at the age of 20. Her lengthy discography is filled with personal and political overtones, but with her new album, she approaches her art in a considerably more stripped-down atmosphere, resulting in songs that inhabit a brilliant, dramatic sonic atmosphere.
With Weimar, she distills her considerable talents into a brief but potent collection of songs featuring simply her vocals and a piano from the 1870s. This approach is a departure from recent works that touched on post-punk, krautrock, ambient, and field recordings, resulting in a magnetic record that is a completely different animal.
The album’s title refers to the fall of the Weimar Republic nearly 100 years ago, which allowed Adolf Hitler to seize power and allow the rise of fascism. “Weimar is both personal and political,” Ocher writes in the album’s press notes. “A meditation on history, a testament to resilience. We must remember that authoritarianism rarely announces itself; it grows quietly, and it is the responsibility of those who survive to speak up and resist.”
The dramatic feel of the opening track, “The Dance”, suggests Tori Amos embracing modern classical themes. It’s one of the new songs on the album, as older, previously recorded compositions are also given space for reinterpretation. “(As Free As) The Great Outdoors (revisited)” is an updated version of a song from her 2013 album EDEN, not an enormous departure from the original recording, but the sparseness of the vocal/piano arrangement brings the song’s intensity into deeper focus.”
Likewise, “On the Streets of Hard Labor (revisited)”, a reworking of a song from her 2011 album War Songs, has an irresistible chamber-pop feel, accompanied by a new music video packed with symbolism and imagery of fascism, totalitarianism, and conformity. Even armed with just her voice and a piano, Ocher’s words and arrangements pack a meaningful punch, perhaps even more so.
More new songs include the brief, elegant “Divorce”, which manages to pair vulnerability with resilience in a composition likely inspired by Ocher’s actual divorce during the pandemic, and the three-movement piece “The Narrative,” a stunning instrumental suite with segments that are atonal, dark, reflective, emotionally gripping, and beautifully ethereal. Weimar closes with the dizzying “Transcend”, as her swirling piano runs are accompanied by spoken word.
On the Bandcamp page for Weimar (and on her official website), Mary Ocher has included an original essay, “Weimar: Reflections on History, Narrative, and Resistance”, where she asks whether or not we are facing the end of a second Weimar, and that in these turbulent times, artists must remain focused. “Art and music have always thrived under tension and threat,” she writes. “Now is not the time for soothing or escapist art. This is the time to shake the complacent, to cry for change, to face the consequences of our own making – before our voices are taken away.”