The word “cinematic” gets thrown around a lot in music writing, but that’s because it works. It drops you into a zone of wide horizons, dramatic close-ups, emotional journeys told through flickering projectors, light leaks, and suspended time. How can a song do all that? Ask Marin, a Tulsa-based artist who cites Breakfast at Tiffany’s as an influence for her new single, “Her,” which has caught the ear of some of Tulsa’s best recording engineers.
“Music is therapeutic. It creates musical landscapes for emotions you may not be able to identify,” Marin said over coffee at Shades of Brown. For about five years, working with local musician and teacher Nathan Wright, she’s been honing her sound, focusing on harmonies and vocal stacking that conjure comparisons to Björk. “Her” feels like an interior space filled with an ethereal layer of voices that want you to listen closely.
Marin grew up around music and art: first singing, then violin, piano, and the theory of music. But she came into the idea of making her own music only a few years ago, as she finished high school. One night in November 2024, while she was staying in LA, a friend asked her to fill in for a jazz night, which is where she met producer and engineer Cody Doss.
After playing, they got to talking, and he asked about her recording process. Up to that point, she’d only recorded virtually, but the prospect of recording in a studio made her excited. The problem? She lived in Oklahoma, not LA.
Turns out? Not a problem. Doss introduced her to Chad Copelin, a producer based in Norman, and Marin describes her session with him as unlike anything she’d experienced as an artist. After three hours in a studio, she left with a demo. Back in Tulsa, she connected with Costa Upson, getting a behind-the-scenes look at music production for over a year with several 10-12-hour sessions of recording, mixing, and layering. Doss, Copelin, and Upson all ended up collaborating on “Her,” along with local music powerhouses Jake Lynn, Stephen Lee, and Nathan Price.
When you find yourself in a reflective mood, this is a song to listen to more than once—though for Marin, the writing itself came easily. She was seeing a guy who talked a lot about his ex. As she listened to him and thought about the ex’s perspective, a poem came, and she wrote it down. The song isn’t about what happened in those relationships, but what those relationships can evoke emotionally in others.
The opening lyrics immediately address the listener, the one who needs to listen closer: “Maybe you realize / She’s exactly what you needed.” Who hasn’t thought in a relationship, “I’m what this person needs”? Sounds good, as long as you’re thinking they’re what you need too. The next lyric hits home with anyone who's struggled with a relationship: “And you’ll do your couples therapy and think ‘what the hell was wrong with me?’”
When she’s shared the song with other women, Marin said, it resonates. They can see themselves in the lyrics. “What about when guys hear it?” I asked her. She shared a story about a guy friend listening to the song and getting defensive, but Marin explained that she didn’t write it as a harsh critique. It was about self-reflection and self-awareness. Listening to “Her” several times, I found myself checking in with my own relationship with my wife, especially the lyrics: “She is sick and worried / about you and all your issues / but she still cares for you.” With its multitude of voices that invite vulnerable self-observation and ultimately clarity, I think the song does exactly what Marin intends it to do.
Now, less than two years after that demo session in LA, she’s got a full album in the works. Marin is spending time with producers Upson and Copelin, working primarily from Upson’s studio, Blackwatch, and Dog Day Studios. They’ve brought in several prominent local artists to collaborate: Nathan Price, Nicholas Foster, Lisa Bloom, Ji Shim Anderson, Jake Lynn, Aaron Boehler, Jordan Hehl, David Puletz, Josh Fudge, and Stephen Lee, with visual help from Ryan Cass (fivish). Together, they have taken her voice memos to recording demos, adding instrumentals and vocals for the bassline.
The album itself, Marin says, has provided a sense of therapy, grounding her in more self-awareness and hope. Instead of being literal or autobiographical, it invites listeners to navigate complex in-between states in their own inner emotional world.
Relationships are complicated, and the best ones deserve introspection. Listening to Marin’s layered voices, her self-observations, you can’t help but check in with yourself. “Her” is a song for floating the river of your mind. Just let the vocal currents take you around the bend, and notice how you feel.
