[Cover photo credit to Jillian Clark]
Mightmare, the Indie Rock/Dark Pop solo project of Sarah Shook, has released a new single/music video “Enemy” in advance of their forthcoming debut album Cruel Liars, out on October 14th, 2022, via Kill Rock Stars. The video was directed by Jordan Gibson of Odyssey Narratives.
Sarah Shook explains:
When I started working on ‘Enemy’ I was thinking about how people can be so vindictive during breakups and how pointless it is. It got me wondering if a breakup somehow triggers something deeper in us psychologically, like a fundamental fear of being forgotten or something. And by the time I finished it I was missing all my childhood friends and all the people I’ve lost along the way.
Mightmare came about through a “need to create and express” when Sarah Shook & the Disarmers were grounded from touring during the global pandemic in 2020. Fresh off becoming sober, Shook devoted newly available time and energy into the process of making an album from start to finish. As a result, Cruel Liars is almost completely self-made and was written, Produced, and engineered by Shook.
Shook adds:
I created my solo project Mightmare and leaned into it obsessively for the first year of the pandemic and out of that manic fixation came Cruel Liars. I put every cell and strand of my being in this album, I’m proud of it for its brightest moments and its glaring imperfections, for its darkness and its quiet hand guiding me to zeniths of personal truths.
Shook cites affordable therapy (found through OpenPathCollective.org) as a piece of their process, something that many queer and low-income people struggle to gain access to even in the best of times.
Mightmare – October Tour
October 19 – Charlotte, NC – Snug Harbor
October 20 – Atlanta, GA – 529
October 21 – Greenville, SC – Radio Room
October 22 – Nashville, TN – The Basement
October 23 – Knoxville, TN – Pilot Light
October 24 – Columbus, OH – Rumba Café
October 25 – Pittsburgh, PA – Club Café
October 26 – Cleveland, OH – Beachland Tavern
October 27 – Cincinnati, OH – Southgate House Revival
October 28 – Urbana, IL – Rose Bowl Tavern
October 29 – Milwaukee, WI – Cactus Club
October 30 – Chicago, IL – Empty Bottle
