Praise for Madeline Kenney:
"As just a first taste of Kenney and Wasner's work together on Perfect Shapes, ‘Cut Me Off’ already feels like an assured leap forward.” - NPR Music
“Kenney is a smoky yet assured vocalist, who variously recalls Beach House's Victoria Legrand or Jana Hunter of Lower Dens.” - Pitchfork
“‘Rita’ is an empowering dream-pop anthem that alternately floats and soars at the whim of Kenney’s dynamically lucid vocals and blissfully fuzzed-out guitar ripping. If you don’t have goosebumps by that first exquisite vocal intonation, just wait for the chorus.” - Gorilla vs. Bear
"[Kenney has a] talent for writing distorted, blissful pop with urgent undercurrents" - The FADER
“[Night Night at the First Landing] as a whole is frequently gorgeous. It’s a promising beginning: Kenney’s built her early career on taking well-worn touchstones and managing to wring something new out of them, making them her own in the process.” - Stereogum (Best New Bands of 2017)
“[Night Night At The First Landing is] twinkling and gossamer in its introspection, and radiates warmth tucked delicately into shoegaze guitar intricacies. Like your childhood home, it welcomes you and offers solace.” - Billboard
"For such a self-assured debut as Night Night at the First Landing, we can only hope to hear more beauty and pain from Kenney in the near future." - Paste
Today Madeline Kenney announces her sophomore album Perfect Shapes and shares the record’s first single. Produced by Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner, Perfect Shapes arrives just a year after Kenney’s Toro Y Moi-produced debut album Night Night at the First Landing, and proves to be an unexpected leap forward in both composition and musicality. Recorded in Durham, NC in January 2018, five months after the release of Night Night, Perfect Shapes marks Wasner’s first foray into producing another artist’s work, and the album is permeated by the pair’s collaborative spirit, with both artists playing multiple instruments on the record. Dealing with subjects of femininity, societal pressures, expectation, value and self-worth, Kenney stands tall in a moment of musical bravery and personal clarity.
“The first time I heard the songs that would come together to form Madeline Kenney’s Perfect Shapes, I understood what it felt like to really have a piece of art speak directly to you...hearing her words felt like someone whispering in my ear the contents of my own mind,” explainsWasner. “This was my first time producing music other than my own, and it was one of the only times I’ve ever experienced working exclusively with women. And it was a creative experience unlike any I’ve ever had.”
Listen to the album’s lead single “Cut Me Off” - the most pop-forward song Kenney has written yet - and watch the House of Nod-produced video via NPR Music HERE. Pre-order the album, outOctober 5th on Carpark Records, HERE or HERE.
Madeline Kenney is on tour now with Wye Oak, with headline dates to be announced soon - see below to find a show near you, and get your tickets HERE.
Raised in the Pacific Northwest, Madeline Kenney began studying classical piano and dance in kindergarten, and grew to believe her future lay in modern dance choreography. Not one to be tied to a singular pursuit, Kenney took a hard left in college, studying Interpersonal Neurobiology and supporting herself with a career in baking. Music remained a constant however, and after moving to the Bay Area in 2013, Kenney quickly found footing in the supportive arts community in Oakland. There, she met and began collaborating with Chaz Bear (Toro Y Moi), which led to the production of her Signals EP and later her debut album, Night Night at the First Landing. Both releases were received with great critical acclaim, and saw Kenney exploring the sounds within her self-proclaimed twang-haze genre, defined by cathartic breakdowns and lyrical sensitivity.
Perfect Shapes sees Kenney leaping headfirst into fresh and adventurous territory, largely eschewing conventional rock structures in favor of theme and melody. Its ten songs are full of surprises big and small - from vibrant synth lines to taut bass figures and subtly modulated vocals - that instead of feeling fussed over, reveal Kenney’s penchant for elegant and abstract composition. Perfect Shapes leans on some of the foundational pieces of Night Night - fuzzed-out guitar tones, coy wordplay and Kenney’s notably strong voice - but with an unconventional approach that allows them to bloom, reincarnated.
Kenney’s dazzling arrangements form the perfect backdrop for the complex and open-ended questions at the core of Perfect Shapes: How do you love another when it hurts to do so? What is the physical limit to which one can carry the emotions of others? How does a modern female artist reckon with the expectations demanded of her femininity? Yet for all the notes of doubt and fear that Kenney raises, she delivers each song with impressive nuance and confidence, makingPerfect Shapes a breath of fresh air in a time when we can all use a bit of courage to tackle today’s hard questions.
Album artwork
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