Marika Hackman

Marika Hackman has earned recognition as a singer and songwriter whose lyrics remain candid and introspective, regardless of shifts in production approach or visual style. She first gained notice through a lean, acoustic-driven method before moving toward denser sonic palettes as her work evolved.

The 2015 album We Slept at Last showcased her voice in a soft, breathy near-whisper suspended above spare, understated settings, whereas 2017’s I’m Not Your Man revealed greater vocal assurance paired with arrangements that merged contemporary folk and indie rock; the project also marked her first releases on Sub Pop and Virgin EMI.

Another turn came with 2019’s Any Human Friend, whose songs adopted a more direct stance while keyboards and dance-pop rhythms took center stage on several cuts. Her Chrysalis Records debut arrived as the 2024 album Big Sigh, an edgier collection built on self-performed rock frameworks augmented by strings and a horn section, following an extended stretch of creative difficulty.

Born in Hampshire, England, in 1992 and raised in Selborne and Devon, Hackman began teaching herself guitar at age twelve. Her parents, both animators, nurtured creativity in their children by restricting television access; the siblings later secured scholarships to Bedales School, celebrated for pupils such as Sophie Dahl and Lily Allen and described by Tatler as “a bohemian idyll with bite.”

While enrolled there, Hackman befriended future model Cara Delevingne, and the pair briefly formed a band with Hackman on drums and Delevingne handling guitar and vocals. After leaving Bedales she moved to Brighton to study art, yet her drive to create music prevailed, prompting a relocation to London’s East End after only a year.

Folk singer-songwriter Johnny Flynn, likewise a Bedales alumnus, produced her debut single, 2012’s “You Come Down,” and helped secure her deal with Transgressive. The track attracted Burberry, which selected her for its 2012 advertising campaign and online acoustic series. Around the same period her brother began attracting notice as a house-music producer under the name Hackman.

Hackman issued her first EP, Free Covers, in 2013; later that year she followed with the original-material sets That Iron Taste and Sugar Blind, both produced by Alt-J’s Charlie Andrew. She spent the remainder of the year touring as support for Laura Marling.

Her debut full-length, We Slept at Last, appeared in 2015 to positive notices and led to another Marling invitation, this time for her initial North American shows. The 2017 follow-up I’m Not Your Man was previewed by the single “Boyfriend,” with both featuring London’s the Big Moon as vocalists and instrumentalists.

Any Human Friend, her third album, surfaced in August 2019 and united forthright writing on love and sexuality with a brighter, pop-oriented sound.

A touring pause brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, which also triggered writer’s block, yielded the November 2020 release Covers—a home-recorded collection of intimate, stripped-back versions of songs by Radiohead, the Shins, Beyoncé, Grimes, and others.

She returned to the studio with fresh material and made her Chrysalis debut in September 2023 with the self-recorded single “No Caffeine,” a track about resisting a panic attack that received additional production from Charlie Andrew and Sam Petts-Davies (Thom Yorke, Warpaint). The same three shared production duties on the accompanying album, January 2024’s Big Sigh, on which Hackman played most instruments herself aside from the strings and horns.