Maria McKee - The Ocean of Helena Lee - Non-Album Tracks (2013-2018)

I'm posting this next collection of Maria McKee stray tracks in celebration of the news that she has a new album coming out in early 2020. It's about time! Her last album was released in 2007.

I'm not sure why McKee pretty much ended her musical career for over ten years. I guess a lot of it had to do with the fact that she married someone named Jim Akin, who writes, directs, and edits indie films. McKee got involved as an actress and co-producer for two films, released in 2013 and 2015. I heard she's supposed to be the main actress in a third one due to be released in 2019, but I guess it's been delayed.

Anyway, while her musical career was put on the back burner for those years, it didn't end entirely. This album collects the new songs I've found that she did.  Three of them come from various artists collections, and three more come from some of her very rare concert performances. But the majority come from the soundtrack to the 2015 movie "The Ocean of Helena Lee," which is why I've given it that title. That's one of the films mainly created by her husband.

A soundtrack of that movie has been released, but it's very hard to find, since McKee's career has been essentially put on hold for many years, and Akin's films play only to a limited art film crowd. The soundtrack has 33 songs on it, all of them by McKee and/or Akin. As you might guess from the number of songs, most of them are short, often less than a minute long. Frankly, in my opinion, most of them aren't very good as songs. That's because they're not meant to be: they're just background instrumental mood setting music for whatever was going on in the movie at that time.

I've selected a mere seven songs from that album for this album. They're generally longer and prominently feature McKee, although I did select one instrumental. They average in length only about two minutes each, but these are the ones that work best as songs and not just mood pieces, in my opinion.

All in all, this is a pretty eclectic, non-commercial bunch of songs. Clearly, she's been following her artistic muse and isn't worried about selling lots of records. I find it interesting or I wouldn't be posting it here, but it's not for everyone.

By the way, McKee has played the occasional concert in recent years, and I have a good recording of one of them, from 2015. The cover of the Aretha Franklin hit "Save Me" on this album comes from that. I plan on posting the whole concert here later. It occurred just after the release of "The Ocean of Helena Lee" and mostly features her songs from that film. They're largely the same songs I picked here, but they come across differently when they're played live.

This album is 41 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 Awkward Age (Maria McKee)
02 Ol' Mother Earth - I Still Exist (Maria McKee & Massar Egbari)
03 Luisa's Lullaby (Maria McKee)
04 I Am Not You (Maria McKee)
05 I Like My Life, I Love You [Instrumental] (Maria McKee)
06 Surf Suit (Maria McKee)
07 My Little Fish (Maria McKee)
08 I'm Here (Maria McKee)
09 Letting It Hang Out Further than Ever (Maria McKee)
10 Jenny Rebecca (Maria McKee)
11 Save Me (Maria McKee)
12 Let Your Light Shine on Me - God Don't Never Change The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson (Maria McKee)
13 Constant Reminder (Sulo & Maria McKee)

She Was Born to Be My Unicorn - Ride a White Swan (Maria McKee & Gavin Friday)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15848225/MariMcK_2013-2018_OceanofHlenaLee_atse.zip.html

For the cover art, I chose a photo that actually is a still of McKee from her supporting actress role in the "Ocean of Helena Lee" movie. The font and text also comes from the movie's promotional material.