rejection letter

“a masterpiece” – Jack Anderson, KUTX

Lissyelle x Mackenzie Shivers hi res-10 smaller.jpg

Mackenzie Shivers was stuck on Cape Cod.

At the onset of the worldwide pandemic, Shivers, along with her husband, decamped to the Cape from their home in Queens, intent on waiting out the proverbial storm at a family friend’s vacant oceanside home. They soon realized they might be waiting a long time and, for the next three months, Shivers and her husband, along with their friend who owned the house, hunkered down far from their New York City apartments.

Inspired by the change in scenery and the serenity offered by a resort town in the offseason, songs began pouring out of Shivers. On Cape Cod, however, Shivers wasn’t armed with a piano, the instrument she’s been writing songs on for over three decades. Rather, she had brought along a nylon-stringed guitar that her father had gifted her years earlier, one his grandmother had bought for him decades before.

With the time afforded by quarantine, Shivers began digging into the heirloom guitar—which she dubbed “Murphy” after a few rounds of polishing courtesy of an old tube of Murphy’s Oil Soap—focusing on honing her playing and exploring the instrument in ways she never had before. Shivers credits the rediscovery of the instrument only partially for the deluge of songs she wrote while on Cape Cod.

In her quarantine, she shed any sort of self-imposed pressure that had always imbued her experience as a songwriter. She also began to experiment with alternate tunings, guided by online guitar tutorials that singer/songwriter Laura Marling was hosting during her own lockdown. It was this freeform approach of exploration combined with a lack of boundaries that led to a newfound sense of joy and fun in Shivers’s songcraft.

Before Shivers headed to Cape Cod, however, she had already written the thirteen songs she thought would comprise her new album. But after returning to New York in June, and armed with a batch of new songs written in the vacant Cape Cod house, her entire approach had shifted. With a focus on the new songs and an inability to safely gather people in a studio to record an album, Shivers and her producer and engineer, Kevin Salem, had to rethink their approach to recording the album.

On hearing the demos, both were convinced the album had to be recorded as soon as possible, that it was an important artistic document of this wildly unprecedented time and one that should be captured in as real of time as possible. They decided to record the album piecemeal, starting with Shivers spending a week with Salem at the Hidden Quarry studio in Boiceville, New York, recording her guitar and piano parts, along with her leading and backing vocals.

From there, Salem would welcome Shivers’s bandmates—Yuka Tadano on bass and Cody Rahn on drums—to his Distortion Tank studio in nearby Woodstock, where each would record their parts alone. During the sessions, Shivers would often follow along via FaceTime, offering notes from her home in Queens. The group also demoed string parts virtually, which were then sent to cellist Oliver Kraus, who further arranged and recorded his parts from his home in Los Angeles.

And though the chemistry of a band playing in a room together may have been lost, Shivers found herself loving the process, as it afforded her a new sense of time and space to focus on her performances in ways she’d never before experienced. Without the responsibility of having to manage the myriad functions of a band playing in a studio, Shivers found herself bound only to her performances, exploring the recording process with a newfound sense of freedom. Much like the old nylon-stringed guitar, it was wholly a new element to her process that afforded Mackenzie Shivers the ability to look deeper within herself as an artist.

It was en route back to New York City from what she thought was her final session that Shivers wrote the album’s eponymous song in her head. Back in Queens, she quickly demoed the song and immediately realized that it was the bow that her album needed to tie everything together. Initially thinking the theme of the song was a response to the rejection letter she’d received for an artistic grant application, Shivers soon realized that the song encapsulated so much more of her music, her outlook on life, and, more importantly, the state of the world at large.

In the writing and recording of Rejection Letter, released April 2nd, Mackenzie Shivers realized that this collection of songs was her way of combating her nature as a people pleaser, as one who would rather not rock the boat. Rather, the songs that poured out of a old family guitar, on a deserted Cape Cod, in a time where the whole of civilization was ground to a halt, were Shivers’s way of taking ownership of her own voice, her ability to speak up and speak out, and to embrace a rebellious spirit that all artist have somewhere inside themselves.

listen to the album

“Symphonic and sung with a honeyed depth.”

— The Autumn Roses

““Dreamy…” ”

— NYS Music

“A mesmerizing vibe.”

— glamglare

““Excellent songwriting” ”

— Americana UK

“With a unique combination of powerful vocals, svelte production, and stunning songwriting, Mackenzie Shivers is an American artistic treasure.”

— Jamie Rodrigeuz, Jrodconcerts

“A group of songs that are as intimate as they are exploratory, loose but disciplined, structured but free.”

— Adobe and Teardrops

“Despite all masterful musical innovation present throughout ‘Rejection Letter’, it’s Shivers’ own heart that shines through the brightest. The album’s unifying thread is undoubtedly a compelling sincerity, and that will be what has listeners coming back time and again.”

— For Folk's Sake

“
Poignant and intimate folk-rock with just enough edge to make you wonder where she will go next.”

— Glide Magazine

“
Shivers carries the weight of the song’s emotional heft, tenderly delivering a lyric that ruminates on longing and inner anguish.”

— PopMatters

“The song and video combined, create something quite mesmerising and magical.”

— Alex Gallachar, Folk Radio UK

““Her cinematic, forthright and electro-acoustic approach allows each track to radiate in its own light with a genuine, timeless and memorable spirit.””

— Tom Haugen, Take Effect Reviews