It’s been quite a while since we’ve had a new release from San Francisco’s own Marika Christine. Last time we featured her on the blog was back in 2024, when she featured on fellow Bay Area artist Asha Wells’ EP Tears Of A Clown. That was a year after Marika released her first full-length album, Soft Like An Apricot. So in the past three years, between her projects and collaborating on many others, Marika hasn’t slowed down one bit.
That drive to keep creating shines on Marika’s new album Enjoy the Clouds, nine tracks of her “whimsical cloud music” which has charmed the Bay for nearly a decade. They are all full of timeless indie folk sound which may make you feel nostalgic while listening. That isn’t just a coincidence: The record shows Marika looking back to the past, reflecting on family, friends, and finding peace and growth in an era where everything seems geared towards failure.
These themes feature most on the title track, which comes with a music video containing clips from a home movie from Marika’s childhood. She says the home movie was the only one found hidden in the crawlspace of her parents’ house. “It was really special to see myself as child (exclusively speaking Dutch!) and reconnect with loved ones by spending time with this document,” Marika says on Instagram. “There is a shot of my Aunt Tine who I was named after (Christine), and a glimpse at some early exposure to music.”
Once again, Marika’s music sounds simple and approachable — folk-oriented and not overproduced — but the compositions along with her voice echo with soul and subtlety. A touch of reverb in Marika’s voice during “Kaleidoscope”, along with some light pedal steel guitar from collaborator Forest Reid, creates a beautiful arrangement in which Marika sings about the shifting perspective on personal freedom. And on “Truth Talk”, the dry drums and breathy vocal delivery make the song read like a breakup letter, or at least a need to go it alone. That theme shows up again on “Blue For You” and “Trouble”, both songs where Marika ruminates on relationships gone sour.
Enjoy the Clouds showcases all of Marika’s musicality, from her upbringing in her musical family to her experience bouncing around different projects and styles. It ends with a testament to self-discovery, “Time to Go”, in which Marika sings about needing to break away from the past and focus on the possibilities of the future: “If every day I thought of only you / I’d be confused until age sixty-two / I need just my guitar and maybe I’ll go far.” It’s a fitting end to an album where looking back and wanting to move forward are both major themes.
But the record posits a major reminder: Even if nostalgia and opportunity tug you in different directions, the most important moment is the present. Do you use the moment to reflect on the clouds — relationships and opportunities — that have long since passed? Do you rush to meet the clouds coming your way? Or do you simply lay back and enjoy the clouds, no matter which direction they’re going?
Marika ponders this at the beginning of the album, on “Sunflower”: “It’s almost November again / Home alone, refrigerator humming / Every week looking to the next / I’ll make it through, pushing past.” She asks: “Will I make it tomorrow? ‘Cause I’d rather stay home instead.” Sometimes it isn’t about worrying about the past or the future. It’s about taking the moments as they come and growing at a reasonable pace: “Try to grow too fast, I might snap in half / Sunflower hunched over withered like an old woman.” With healthy decisions and a firm grip on the present, Marika sings, maybe that sunflower can grow high with a sturdy stem, even high enough to enjoy the clouds. Without getting lost in them, of course.
You may have your own thoughts, and so I invite you to listen to Enjoy the Clouds, preferably on a somewhat warm, windy day in nature. In the meantime, take a look at the wonderful music video for the title track below.
Written by Will Sisskind
