Tag: Rachael Sage

STREAM: Rachael Sage, ‘The Other Side’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Artist: Rachael Sage
Hometown: Hudson Valley, New York
Album: The Other Side
Release Date: July 21, 2023
Label: MPress Records

In Their Words: “The Other Side is my 15th album and yet, in some ways, it felt like I was starting all over again with this particular collection of songs and recordings. After we were all emerging from lockdown, I noticed there was such an intense awareness that nothing would ever be quite the same, but nor should it be. As a songwriter, how do you chronicle a time of so much loss, but also so much gratitude – just to still be able to live, anticipating all that you will see, do, and experience once you’re able to move freely, beyond a time of immediate crisis?

“My goal in creating this record was to channel a kind of zealousness and to transcend limitations, which we had all largely become accustomed during the pandemic – and, in so doing, to reignite hope. How does music and creative expression in general help us get back to the business of living, with renewed joy, courage, appreciation and even idealism? The dozen originals on the album all circle the theme of transcendence in some way, as do the handful of covers I selected. Yearning, forgiveness, breathing itself – only human beings can thoroughly understand the miracle it is to do all of these with reverence and uplift, after enduring trauma. I hope when people listen they hear not only my voice, but the echoes of refrains so many of us clung to over the last several years: Hopes and imaginings that kept us going, and family and friends, who we were reminded the hard way are the most precious legacy anyone can create in this lifetime.” – Rachael Sage

Photo Credit: Bill Bernstein

WATCH: Poetica (Rachael Sage), “Sleep When I’m Tired”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Poetica (Rachael Sage)
Hometown: New York, New York
Song: “Sleep When I’m Tired”
Album: Poetica
Label: MPress Records

In Their Words: “I wrote ‘Sleep When I’m Tired’ off the top of my head — sitting at my music workstation in Upstate NY somewhere in the middle of our first lockdown. The words just kind of fell out of my mouth very naturally, and before I knew it I’d made a little demo of it in GarageBand using a four-bar blues loop. The vocal that you hear is my first take, and I built the percussion tracks around that initial performance, in somewhat of an exhausted creative stupor. I was definitely living the content of the song as it came out of me half-asleep, and other musicians I recruited remotely to add various colors were likewise feeling a lot of fatigue and even depression during that time, from sheer isolation.

“For that reason, it was important to me that when we made the video, there’d be a surrealistic, dreamlike quality to it, prompting the viewer to ask ‘where exactly are we and what’s going on?’ while also feeling a kind of dissociation between the performance and the environment. This is a reversal of what we’re used to, where home protects us from the elements. But as we all learned during these unusual times, whether we’re alone or with others, we all need wide open spaces, nature, and plenty of imagination to stave off the blues.” — Rachael Sage

Photo credit: Tom Moore