Madison Cunningham, Bendigo Fletcher
Majestic Theatre 115 King St., Madison, Wisconsin 53703
Claire Marie Vogel
Madison Cunningham
$20 ($18 adv.).
media release: Two-time Grammy nominee Madison Cunningham’s new album Revealer is set for release September 9 on Verve Forecast.
Listen/share "In From Japan" HERE.
“I think ultimately this song is about being frustrated with the idea of purpose, and burdened by the sweeping questions that come with ‘No one’s holding you back now’ and all of the negative space that is left to make mistakes in,” Cunningham explains. “It very much reflected how I was feeling at the time—only able to speak in metaphors and having a hard time expressing what was so paralyzed in myself.”
Revealer finds Cunningham working once again with Mike Elizondo (Twenty One Pilots, Gary Clark Jr.) as well as longtime producer and collaborator Tyler Chester and Tucker Martine (Neko Case, Sufjan Stevens).
“To me, ‘revealer’ is the binding theme of the album,” says Cunningham. “The hand that slowly chips away at the mirror in which you see yourself and the world and replaces it with the reflection that is most true.” The album is full of confessions, intimations and hard truths—a self-portrait of a young artist who is full of doubt and uncertainty yet bursting with exciting ideas about music and life.
“Hospital” follows previously released album track “Anywhere,” which Consequence raves “picks up where the whimsical, pop-infused folk of Wednesday—which was nominated for Best Folk Album at the 2022 Grammys—left off, complete with a theatrical and playful Francophone music video.”
The Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter is fresh off the heels of a successful 2021 which found her opening for Harry Styles at his sold-out Madison Square Garden shows, writing an original song “Broken Harvest” for NPR Morning Edition’s Song Project and later performing the song on “The Late Late Show with James Corden.”
Cunningham’s list of champions continues to grow including Harry Styles, John Mayer, Andrew Bird and Sara Bareilles. The artist first picked up a guitar at age seven, and by age twelve was singing and performing alongside her five siblings in church. By the age of fifteen, Cunningham realized songwriting was a passion she wanted to pursue, citing Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan as key inspirations.