New York, NY (Top40 Charts) The new piano-driven ballad from New York singer-songwriter, Mackenzie Shivers, stares down hate and animosity with dubious eyes and questions its purpose head-on. Piano melodies and wallowing strings layer like black velvet over rigid mountains of tension.
Drums heighten each vulnerable emotion climbing towards salvation. The single is the title track off the upcoming album, The Unkindness, out February 8.
Shivers wrote "The Unkindness" after feeling powerless from the turbulence shaking the country at its core. The single victoriously lifts its hands from the ground and buries political turmoil deep within the earth. Instead, it replaces the tainted surface with seeds of empowerment and hope. Shivers explains, "Those seeds we planted two years ago? They're growing and starting to take shape." The single is a way to release tension building up on all sides of the political environment. Her plea for rescue pushes away the unkindness growing thicker and caving in on all reasoning and understanding. "The Unkindness" moves like a slow-motion frame of a car crash, with the protagonist rising through the flames and marching toward the clearing of smoke.
The Unkindness stands like a powerful army, a collection of songs with resilient soldiers on the battle lines fighting against the "unkindness" that appears in the world. Songs like "Believe," "The Unkindness" and "
Better" were forged in the fires of feminism after major cultural and political shifts including the Me Too movement and the 2016 election. The album as a whole pledges a therapeutic commentary on the harsh realities that surface and spread like wildfire on the world. Like coping with the "unkindness" all around us, Shivers conveys the realness and rawness of hands joining in unity and marching forward.
This is Shivers' first time being listed as a producer on a project, further injecting more of her own personal creative vision into the heart of each song. Although the album is deeply personal, her production contributions and passion for songwriting allowed for a very specific and cohesive mood. Rather than focusing on making each take perfect, Shivers emphasized the importance of capturing the story being told.
About Mackenzie Shivers:
Mackenzie Shivers started writing music when she was four years old and started piano lessons when she was five. She received a degree in music composition from the Blair School of Music, while studying piano, voice, and orchestration. She released her first album Neverland in 2014, and two EPs, Living in my Head in 2016 and Ravens in 2017. While playing in a handful of other New York-based bands, she is now ready for her sophomore album, The Unkindness. Shivers is featured as a producer on the album, which is out in February of 2019, and it was mastered, engineered and mixed by
Kevin Salem, who has worked with Rachael Yamagata, Bat for Lashes, and
Valerie June. She has been featured in blogs like The Deli Magazine and Ear To The Ground.
The Unkindness Tracklisting:
Dawn
Ravens
The Canyon
Phoenix
Believe
Tears to Keep Me Warm
Middle of the Night
mr. jones
The Unkindness
See You Soon
Better
Tour Dates
1.29 The Lilypad, Cambridge, Massachusetts
2.03 Songbyrd
Music House, Washington, D.C.
2.07 Rockwood
Music Hall, New York, New York
2.18 Gabos Recital Hall, Tampa, Florida
2.27 Rakuya Nakameguro, Nakameguro, Tokyo
3.02 Inamuragasaki-syokudo, Kamakura, Tokyo
3.04 Desture, Odawara, Kanagawa
3.05 Ark Hills Cafe, Roppongi, Tokyo
3.16 Rockwood
Music Hall, New York, New York
Praise for Mackenzie Shivers
"Citing her influences as, amongst others, The Chieftains,
Elton John and Joni Mitchell, the songs on the EP have a richness and maturity to them." —Andrew Higgins , Americana UK
"In a word, Mackenzie writes epic music, and it is easy to see why comparisons are being drawn to
Joni Mitchell and Florence and the Machine. I'd even add influences of Bat for Lashes and PJ Harvey." —Mandy Southgate , Addicted to Media
"Sultry voiced, sonically powerful and interesting with its wide spectrum, this isn't some quickly thrown together release as a tide over - this effort took thought and planning to execute." —Rob Ross, PopDose
"Her voice, a lilting and significant power, conveys personal insight into the fanciful things that she refuses to allow to cloud her judgment..." —Joshua Pickard, The Southern Sounding
"[Believe" is] one of those tracks which, once heard, you can't believe hasn't existed for years - perhaps the ultimate compliment." —Songwriting Magazine
