As much as writing is a healing exercise for McRae herself, she also sees it as something that can help others. She wants to write music that, she hopes, people can see themselves in – especially in genres like folk that have been gatekept from too many communities for far too long.
“One of my favourite pieces of feedback that I’ve ever gotten is from trans girls telling me that they like that they can sing my songs because my voice is so low,” McRae says. “That’s what I’m talking about! That’s the kind of thing that is the point of folk music – to be an outsider and to be seen and to be heard. To tell really specific, niche stories in a way that still feels universal. And so when I can make music that not only reaches other marginalized people – whose experiences might not overlap with mine – but also can reach the straight white guys, that’s what it’s all about.”
To record the album, McRae made the storied pilgrimage down to Brad Cook’s studio in North Carolina. The state seems to be the new it-place for the folk scene, with scores of favourites from Waxahatchee to Bon Iver to Hippo Campus heading down to work with Cook.
“It was literally the best ever, it felt like summer camp,” McRae says of the process. Alongside Cook, McRae worked with a few engineers, Nathan Stocker of Hippo Campus, and, of course, her brother Holden, who acts as her keyboardist. “If you’re not rocking with Holden, you’re not holding with me.” Though the process was incredibly fun, it was also diligent. Not a moment was wasted, and McRae says she soaked up as much of Cook’s mastery by osmosis as humanly possible. “He has no agenda. He has no ego. Like, he just loves good music, and he loves every kind of good music. He doesn’t care how old you are. He doesn’t care about your cache. If he believes in the music, that’s the only thing that’s important,” McRae says of Cook’s work.