Maple Glider - To Enjoy Is The Only Thing (LP) - Pearly Green Vinyl

Some albums feel like someone leaning in to tell you the truth, no bigger than a room and all the more gripping for it. Maple Glider’s debut, To Enjoy Is The Only Thing, lives in that space. Melbourne songwriter Tori Zietsch records under the Maple Glider name, and in 2021 she delivered a set of songs that plays like a travel diary and a reckoning. Released via Pieater in Australia and Partisan Records elsewhere, it is spare and unguarded, the kind of record that wins you over by confiding rather than insisting.

Tom Iansek, the quietly legendary hand behind Big Scary, #1 Dads and No Mono, produced the album, and you can hear the trust between singer and producer in every decision. Nothing is crowded. Fingerpicked acoustic guitar, some soft bass and brushed percussion, a piano phrase that appears just when you need it. It does not sound undercooked. It sounds purposeful, like the studio lights were turned down low and anything that did not serve the song went back in the case. Zietsch had spent time living in Brighton and traveling around Europe before returning to Melbourne, and those miles show up in the writing. There is movement in these stories, but there is also stillness, the kind you find when you finally sit with what happened.

"As Tradition" sets the tone. It is a clear eyed look at upbringing and expectation, sung without bitterness, which is what makes it hit. The melody walks a fine line between lullaby and lament, and when the harmonies lift, it feels like someone opening a window. "Good Thing" is the one that first hooked a lot of people, a breakup song that sidesteps drama for clarity. Zietsch sings like she is talking to herself on a long tram ride, noticing exactly when something once warm went cool. The arrangement gives her room to breathe, and the little rhythmic push in the chorus keeps it from floating away.

"Swimming" drifts in with a watery sway that matches its title. It is about keeping your head above the surface, but the lyric is too thoughtful to settle for a simple metaphor. There is a cut and a comfort in the way she phrases, the sound of someone trying to be gentle with a memory that does not return the favor. "Baby Tiger" flips the scale, a tiny domestic snapshot that lands like a deep exhale. The song is barely more than guitar and voice, but the details do the work. You can see the room, feel the hour, and by the end you are convinced that tenderness can be its own argument. "Friend" traces the ache of distance, the way travel throws relationships out of rhythm. There is a line in there that will catch in your throat even if you think you are immune to that sort of thing.

What makes the album stick is how Zietsch sings. There is air in her voice, but not fragility. She tends to sit close to the mic, which keeps the consonants soft and the vowels warm. If you like the intimate intensity of Laura Marling or the quiet focus of early Big Thief, this sits on that shelf. Iansek knows when to underline a syllable with a piano note or let a harmony glow for two bars longer than expected. Nothing showy. Enough to make you go back and notice it again on the next spin.

It is a beautiful listen on LP. This is the kind of record that rewards a side A, side B attention span, and To Enjoy Is The Only Thing vinyl turns the room into its own little studio. If you keep a list of Maple Glider albums on vinyl you want to grab, start here. A lot of folks discovered it while crate digging in a Melbourne record store, but you will also find Maple Glider vinyl in plenty of places that ship across the country. If you buy Maple Glider records online from a shop that knows how to pack a sleeve, it will arrive ready to be your Sunday morning repeat. For anyone browsing vinyl records Australia wide, this is the quiet gem that keeps showing up in staff picks, and for good reason.

Debuts can sometimes feel like a promise. This one feels complete. It does not sprint to prove itself, it lingers, and in that time it builds a world you want to return to. The title sounds like a dare at first, then reads like advice. By the third or fourth play, it starts to feel like a way to live.