On “want” Portland Songwriter MAITA Confronts Longing in Song

Consider the word “want.” Common enough, sure, but not the easiest to express when looking to get a need met—especially by someone you love. It’s a friction that, during the pandemic, was much on the mind of Maria Maita-Keppeler, the musician who records and performs as MAITA, as she built the material for her recently released album want.

“As I was writing these songs, I was really feeling like they were coming from this place of longing and desperation,” she says. “Being able to express my own desires and what I want has always been difficult for me. Songwriting has been a place where I’ve been able to stretch my limbs a bit and express myself in ways that I’m not in my regular life.”

Maita-Keppeler’s lyrics on want gush with emotion as she digs through the memories of past lovers to uncover the patterns that are feeding into her current relationships. She returns to the title of the album in each song, wondering aloud why a certain someone only wants her when they’re inebriated or why she can’t be the object of desire that she once was, or her simple inability to, as she sings on the explosive “violet dream,” “stare into your mouth and tell you what I want.”

The music follows a similar pattern, with Maita-Keppeler and her regular gang of collaborators—guitarist Matthew Zeltzer, bassist Nevada Sowle, and drummer Cooper Trail—setting the warm simmer of “break up song x3″ and the minimalist “almost nothing, keeps me alive” alongside the near-power pop of “i used to feel different.”

“Part of what we as a band have always strived for,” Maita-Keppeler says, “is to capture the emotional journey of every song with as much authenticity as possible. We’re looking at each individual song and saying, ‘What does [it] need?’ as opposed to, ‘Let’s make this a record that would fit into this genre.’ There are few quiet songs on this record, but the intense moments needed the high highs and the low lows to really stick out.”

The trust in her bandmates and her devotion to careful songcraft are what has helped Maita-Keppeler achieve all manner of attention since the release of her first album, Best Wishes, in 2020. She earned accolades from SPIN and NPR and has been welcomed on bigger stages, like her upcoming appearance opening for Canadian indie-rockers Broken Social Scene at Wonder Ballroom on Aug. 18.

With that comes all manner of struggles for an artist in her position. The desire to keep pushing forward and reach greater heights is often at the mercy of the realities of everyday life. Both she and her bandmates have to hold down day jobs to survive when they’re not on the road or in the studio.

“It’s really hard,” Maita-Keppeler admits. “It’s such a challenge to put all the pieces together, and I’m still trying to figure out how to get through it all. I don’t even know if it gets any easier.”

The same can be said for the process of moving forward as an artist. At present, Maita-Keppeler has an album to promote, which she’ll begin doing in earnest in October with a run of West Coast tour dates, so her next creative moves aren’t a huge concern. But that itch to find new material will undoubtedly grow stronger soon enough.

“I kind of worry after writing an album that I’m just going to continue writing the same songs,” she says. “After writing want, I was trying to experience life a little bit and figure out my perspective. I like to wait to see if there’s some processing and evolution that can happen.”

SEE IT: MAITA plays at Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., wonderballroom.com. 7 pm Sunday, Aug. 18. $25.