Music & Bands
Marielle V Jakobsons
Oakland-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Marielle V Jakobsons creates work that investigates how sound shapes our experience of time and space. Her post-minimal compositions weave together Fender Rhodes piano, violin, voice, and synthesizers into enveloping polyrhythmic landscapes.
“The minutest vibrations are as expressive as the most sweeping gesture… Star Core’s mood exquisitely balances melancholy and hope.”
“The astral elegance of Alice Coltrane’s most sacred works.”
Her new album The Patterns Lost to Air (Thrill Jockey, Feb 2026) reflects a profound musical and personal transformation. Shaped by Jakobsons’ move from drones toward scored and harmonic writing—and by the physical limitations brought on by illness—the album asks what happens when we release our grip on familiar patterns in sound and in self. Each piece emerges from a place of necessary restriction, revealing how limitation can become a portal to new sonic worlds. Through shimmering Fender Rhodes motifs, slowly shifting loops, and lush strings, the album dwells in the space where patterns dissolve, morph, and take new shape in the air.
Jakobsons has cultivated a signature voice molded by minimalist, ambient, and spiritual traditions. Her recordings—spanning early work with Date Palms, her ongoing collaboration with Chuck Johnson in Saariselka, and the spectral solo worlds of Glass Canyon, Star Core, and now The Patterns Lost to Air—show her to be an artist of patience, precision, and depth; a musician who derives maximum impact from the most delicate sonic materials.
For more info, see Press Kit
Listen & Watch:
Bands and Collaborations
-
Saariselka
Saariselka There is an old Norse myth that says the great northern glaciers stored energy until they burst with fluorescent light, creating the Aurora Borealis. Saariselka is inspired by the meeting of earth and light, where slowly moving land masses merge with enveloping light fields.
This sonic collaboration is between composers Marielle Jakobsons (Fender Rhodes, organ, synthesizers) and Chuck Johnson (pedal steel guitar and treatments.). Our debut Ceres was released by Longform Editions, and full-length record “The Ground Our Sky” is out on Temporary Residence Ltd.
-
Date Palms
Founded together with Gregg Kowalsky Date Palms (datepalmsofpsalms.com) is violin, flute, Fender-Rhodes, and synthesizers with Ben Bracken on bass, Noah Phillips on guitar, and Michael Elrod on tanpura.
The music is influenced by hot summer nights, classical Indian carnatic music, dub, Miles Davis. In Summer 2013, The Dusted Sessions was released by Thrill Jockey. Our debut LP Of Psalms was released on Root Strata. Our second LP Honey Devash was released by Mexican Summer August 2011.
-
Myrmyr
Together with multi-instrumentalist Agnes Szelag the electroacoustic duo myrmyr (myrmyr.net), has toured the US with its electronic ambient folk. “The Amber Sea” album was released by Digitalis (2009), and our second album ‘Fire Star’ by Under the Spire Recordings (2011). We compose often for ensembles, performing with the SFSound Group, Unweathered Embers Ensemble, Helena Espvall, Derek Johnson, & Noah Phillips.
Listen to our albums and our EJS collaboration with Helena Espvall of Espers on the Myrmyr Bandcamp.
Discography
Marielle V Jakobsons - The Patterns Lost to Air - on Thrill Jockey Records
Saariselka - The Ground Our Sky - on Temporary Residence Ltd.
Saariselka - Thousand Eyes in the Dark Compilation on Ghostly Intl
Saariselka - Ceres - on Longform Editions
Marielle V Jakobsons - Star Core - on Thrill Jockey Records
Date Palms - The Dusted Sessions - on Thrill Jockey Records
Date Palms - Honey Devash - on Mexican Summer
Marielle V Jakobsons - Glass Canyon- on Students of Decay
Date Palms - Of Psalms - on Root Strata
Portraits - Portraits - on Important Records
Espvall / Jakobsons / Szelag - Improvisations for Strings and Electronics
Myrmyr - Fire Star - on Under the Spire Recordings
Myrmyr - Fire Star - on Digitalis Records
darwinsbitch (aka MVJ) - ORE - on Digitalis Records
darwinsbitch (aka MVJ) - Steel Hum - on Digitalis Ltd
darwinsbitch (aka MVJ) - Induction EP