The Sunday Music Drop is a weekly radio series hosted by the KQED weekend news team. In each segment, we feature a song from a local musician or band with an upcoming show and hear about what inspires their music.
Singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Marika Christine has been in bands in San Francisco for eight years. She started out with musical theater as a child, which led to her pursuing classical voice in high school at School of the Arts.
As a teenager, Christine began writing her own songs. Her solo project started during the pandemic, and has since grown into performing shows and working with her full band. Soft Like an Apricot is her second full-length album, following Puzzle World in 2021. She’s releasing her second album through a Seattle-based record label called Ghost Mountain Records, and it’s available on vinyl from Bandcamp.
She considers her genre “singer-songwriter meets psychedelic rock” and also identifies with indie rock, folk rock or freak folk. Christine said that her song “Buckle Up Baby” has its roots in 1970s songwriting.
“It’s kind of about processing a big change and trying to move physically forward, but having a hard time mentally catching up with the new direction you’re going,” she said.