Born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, Marcus Walton was exposed early to the music of Garth Brooks, MxPx, and Björk, and has been trying to split the difference ever since. With music that has been described as “seminal,” “fun,” “too quiet,” “note-heavy,” “crybaby,” and “very upsetting,” =Walton has truly broken the mold and repeatedly forgotten or refused to pay the mold owner for its repair. Formerly of the all too short-lived bands Jezebel County Hospital and Lyndon Baynes Johnson and the Sea Geese. He released his self-produced debut EP Appendices in 2019, and his newest and first full-length album, Buena Vista, is about middle school, lost friends, the possibility and impossibility of intimacy, little flowers, and you.
If you’re still trying to make sense of the baffling, embarrassing, and formidable trials and tribulations of American childhood, Walton may have had some of the navigational tools you’re looking for to escape on his new single, “PLAYING Doom (set in Hell) on Don Garner’s Computer (in his Bedroom)”. Just past the ominous laser beam shoot-out that makes up the brief introduction, a leisurely paced indie rock composition emerges that manages to be forward-looking with the perfect sprinkling of nostalgia throughout, showcasing Walton’s wide range of influences.
‘PLAYING is the 5th song on this unwieldy concept album, Buena Vista, about a mysterious and all but forgotten boy named Don Garner and my memories of him. It attempts to be fun, whilst taking as its subject matter navigating the hellscape of toxic masculinity that was a relatively normal American childhood in the 90s. Its desperate refrain “Is there an accurate map?” is, I hope, answered elsewhere in the text and scope of the album: “No. But maps are often overrated.” Beauty, sweat, hope, and love will just have to do,” adds Walton.
