Madeline Kenney The Same, Again: ANRM (Tiny Telephone Session)

About

Following the success of her  fourth album, A New Reality Mind, Madeline Kenney is back with The Same, Again: ANRM (Tiny Telephone Session).

The Same Again: ANRM (Tiny Telephone Session) places Madeline Kenney in a light of which many have never seen before — unless you caught her immaculate mid-pandemic livestream performance for Outside Lands’ Inside Lands at the Saint Joseph’s Art Society, that is. Recorded at Tiny Telephone in Oakland, CA in just one day, Kenney rerecorded her latest studio album A New Reality Mind in full with only a grand and an open upright piano (aside from the occasional inclusion of backing vocalists). 

While touring A New Reality Mind, Kenney faced new curveballs each night —  a lost power cord here, a lack of monitors there — which forced her to adapt and strip down the performance. These random sets of circumstances ended up being a fun challenge and would go on to inspire the recording of The Same Again. Kenney, ordinarily the ever meticulous producer, welcomed the new set of constraints. Using fewer tools allowed her to re-center her focus on communicating the story of these songs.

Using musical sketches from the sessions that brought us her EP Summer Quarter, the recording of A New Reality Mind was prompted by a sudden break-up in 2022. Once she listened back to those recordings, she noticed that she was more aware of the signs than she had realized. The album shows the process of acceptance, self-forgiveness, and a willingness to move forward. In their new format, the songs are even more therapeutic than the original — happy or sad.

A New Reality Mind was Kenney’s first self-produced record having worked previously with Chaz Bear of Toro y Moi, and Jenn Wasner of Flock of Dimes and Andy Stack who together make up Wye Oak. With three records already under her belt, Kenney was ready to do it on her own and A New Reality Mind was also the first written primarily on piano and synthesizer. Full autonomy allowed her to make highly orchestrated, calculated, and formulated productions. 

While A New Reality Mind showcased her ability as a producer and songwriter, The Same Again is proof of her ability as a musician. The Same Again is indeed stripped down, but Kenney’s prowess on the piano still feels magnificently full. There’s also more room for her vocals to shine. Ever the emotive and passionate singer, in a way that feels almost punk, every inflection and extra added bit of breath exerted can be heard perfectly. Limiting herself to 1–3 takes added a new, but welcome, sense of pressure. With fewer instruments to fuss over, she was allowed to meditate more on the lyrical content and how to even more clearly communicate what she wanted to say to the listener. The result is more honest, comforting, intimate, and true. “It was a whirlwind to do it all in one day, but I really enjoy working that way,” Kenney shares, “It feels much more at the base essence of the role that music plays in my own life — urgent expression of the inner self.”

Artist Bio

Oakland’s Madeline Kenney bounds toward the unknown on her iridescent third album, Sucker’s Lunch. The songs swell and lament, expanding the idea of a love song into something more grounded in self-awareness and philosophy than blind devotion. Sucker’s Lunch is the follow-up to 2018’s critically acclaimed Perfect Shapes, which Pitchfork described as Kenney “stepping onto the pedestal of her own design.” Her sonic world is that of colorful harmonies, dramatic lyrics, and thick layers of guitar, having shifted and become more astute in this most recent work. 

Kenney has a history of fostering collaborative recording and touring relationships, notably working on projects of her own with both Wye Oak and Toro y Moi. Jenn Wasner (Wye Oak) and Kenney first collaborated on Perfect Shapes in 2018, and they teamed up again for Sucker’s Lunch, with Wye Oak and Kenney as co-producers. Chaz Bear of Toro y Moi produced Kenney’s Signals EP and debut record Night Night At The First Landing, putting both out on his label, Company Records. Kenney has also lent vocals on multiple Toro y Moi projects, including 2017’s Boo Boo. In 2019 she released the split EP, The Sisters / Helpless in collaboration with Flock of Dimes (Wasner’s solo project). With a keen eye for visual narrative, Kenney also has provided direction for music videos for artists including Hand Habits, Boy Scouts, and A.O. Gerber. 

Usually not one to write devotional love songs, a twist in circumstance found Kenney falling head first into love and music as if they were one and the same. The ten songs that comprise Sucker’s Lunch came together swiftly and decisively, often in bursts when Kenney was alone and gently losing her mind in her former home in Durham, NC. Between tours with Soccer Mommy, Wye Oak, Jay Som and Lord Huron, Kenney wrote and recorded Sucker’s Lunch in Durham, NC and Oakland, CA, finishing the album in a few compact sessions. The resulting record is a dedication to the rewards that supposed “foolishness” — in art, love, and music – can bring. Kenney’s determined visual sense for storytelling came into play in the direction of both the cover image and the accompanying music videos. 

With every project Kenney pursues, she continues to shine in her ability to speak the strange, ambiguous, impossible truths — and Sucker’s Lunch is no exception, providing us with nothing less than a balanced meal for the wise fool in us all.