South London Trio mary in the junkyard Detail Debut Album ‘Role Model Hermit’

The first thing to understand about mary in the junkyard is that the band’s gravity comes from an almost non-verbal rapport. Singer Clari Freeman-Taylor, bassist and string player Saya Barbaglia, and drummer David Addison now live together south of the Thames, and their debut album ‘Role Model Hermit’ spent years simmering inside that shared space. Before any external narrative – the US shows with Wet Leg, a spot in DIY’s Class of 2025, the steady London gigging – there was an understanding that the music itself shouldn’t feel observed.

“It’s important when you’re making stuff to make it like it’s not going to be seen at all,” Freeman‑Taylor says, summarising a practice that treats the record as a private document. That restraint shapes the atmospheric alt-rock on ‘Role Model Hermit’: the sprawling ‘Crash Landing’, the Big Thief‑adjacent ache of ‘Blood’, the folkish flex of ‘Thou Shalt Sprout’. Barbaglia hears the recordings as snapshots of flux rather than polish, while Addison, who had the vinyl in his hands hours before this conversation, sees the physical object as something built to outlast the feed.

Produced with Oli Bayston and committed to tape in London, the album pulls deliberately inward. Freeman‑Taylor admits she rarely finishes ideas on her own, but the trio’s collective editing instinct became a finishing mechanism. Addison runs a gig‑listing site and works at The George Tavern; that embeddedness in a healthy local scene gave the band a low‑stakes starting point. But even with that foundation, the priority never shifted from the three‑way kinship. Freeman‑Taylor puts it plainly: “Confidence has to come from loving yourself and feeling good about yourself. I think we help each other to do that.” The result is a record that doesn’t chase attention, but doesn’t need to.