[Cover photo credit to Sara Haile]
Woodstock, NY-based singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Mackenzie Shivers has just launched a Kickstarter to help release her fourth full-length studio album. While the album’s title has yet to be revealed, the artist is very candid about some of the roots of the music and even about some of the recording process with Producer Kevin Salem in Woodstock, New York.
For those familiar with Mackenzie Shivers’ work, you’ll be intrigued to hear that she says it’s “as close to pop music as anything I’ve made.” It is also her “most vulnerable and personal, as it explores the many layers of grief and loss”.
Mackenzie Shivers writes on the Kickstarter campaign page:
“This album is about grief. It’s about navigating its many layers and holding onto hope in the face of it. Grief doesn’t move neatly through a cycle. It evokes many conflicting feelings that can happen all at once, and they often do.
Grief has many sources, but for me, writing and recording this music was a way to process and heal from a miscarriage I suffered in June of 2021. Creating this album is a way for me to move forward. It has allowed me to feel sad, angry, strong, resilient, and hopeful. To both dance and cry! Releasing it is my way of giving life to what I lost.
And my main hope is that it also serves as a way to help others feel seen, understood, and less alone. To give you a space to feel any and all things. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from this experience, it’s that nothing you feel is wrong. Feeling all emotions is the only way to move through them. Maybe even towards joy.
We started tracking this album in September 2021. I’d just moved to Woodstock, NY from Queens and I now live five minutes from my friend, collaborator, and producer Kevin Salem (who produced my third LP Rejection Letter with me). And that means a lot more time and freedom to explore and create. It’s been amazing and completely changed the way I made this record!
For nine months, Kevin and I tracked song by song, just the two of us. Then Cody Rahn and Yuka Tadano added drums and bass, respectively. Some songs morphed into dance tunes, others into something more contemplative. Words that came up during recording were “weird pop”, “post-punk”, “hand-made”, and my personal favorite, “sad dance bops.”‘
The campaign for the album runs until September 16th, 2022, at 12pm EDT.
