The idea came to María Zardoya during a late night walk in the woods of the Catskills: When a great love dies, where does one bury it?

From the damp forest floor to her piano, Zardoya called forth new life from love's decay, and transmuted it into Melt: an album composed of intimate, psychedelic ballads, which Zardoya will release under the enigmatic moniker Not for Radio. Coming October 10th on Atlantic Records, Melt marks the first solo outing for Zardoya, who will remain the beguiling lead singer and songwriter of the Grammy-nominated indie-pop band, The Marías.

“Musically, I had so much more I wanted to say,” she says.

In January of 2025, Zardoya sought time away from the harsh glare of the L.A. sunshine and landed in rural Upstate New York, where she spent three wintery weeks at Flying Cloud Recordings: the home and studio of artist-producer Sam Evian. Zardoya likens Evian's wooden barnhouse to a womb, where she felt safe to gestate new songs from her grief. "I wanted to be away from the industry and put myself in a completely different environment, — far from everyone that I know," says Zardoya. "I needed an element of discomfort to get to the feeling."

By day, Zardoya and Evian, along with instrumentalist Luca Buccellati, unplugged from the outside world, snacked on locally-sourced duck eggs and homemade sourdough as they jammed into the sunset. By night, the trio would drive through the mist and listen to records by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Thom Yorke and Broadcast for inspiration. Sometimes they'd pull off the road and wander among the trees, as if under nature’s spell — taking in the frost on the leaves, the blankets of dew on the ground and the insects soldiering through the snow. “We wrote ‘Puddles’ the same day that I fell into a puddle on our morning walk,” says Zardoya; so begins the album, which was recorded in the order that the songs revealed themselves to the group. “You can hear us getting to know each other as the album progresses.”

These enchanted retreats informed the gothic romanticism of Melt, which runs like spider silk through the ‘60s baroque-pop trappings of “My Turn,” into the digital age nocturne that is "Swan," in which Zardoya’s desperate calls for connection are met with layers of distant, frost-bitten synths. In "Not the Only One," Zardoya spins a breathy drum machine confessional, spiraling blithely into a fantasy… or perhaps a perilous, Argento-esque delusion. ("All living things start in the underworld," she says.)

Not for Radio is the latest musical project by Zardoya. The Marías are currently on tour in support of their 2024 breakthrough album, Submarine, which reached No. 17 on the Billboard 200. They made their first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100 chart with the song "No One Noticed," which peaked at No. 22. The Marías have taken the stage at Coachella, toured with Billie Eilish and appeared in Bad Bunny’s Grammy-nominated album from 2022, Un Verano Sin Ti. Zardoya also collaborated with Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco for their 2025 hit single, "Ojos Tristes."