Intro – Notes from the Archive: Recordings 2011-2016 (Commentary)

Hey, this is Maggie Rogers. If you're listening to this you probably knew that already. Um, what you're about to hear is a record that I've put together called Notes from the Archive: Recordings 2011-2016.

I started writing songs as a way to process and document my life. A few years later, music production became a way for me to hear those songs alive and in the world in full form in the world. This record is about looking back on those ten years of work. It's about looking to the future by honoring the past. So, in that spirit I've left all the recordings in their original forms. They are so sturdy and real to me now as when I wrote them when I was 16, 18, 20, and so much of this record is about the process. It's about honoring the time it takes to come to a full form, about artistic development and how important and sacred that process is. And I wanted to give you the chance to hear me grow and hear me make mistakes, hear me change because all of those pieces are really beautiful parts of my present, and I don't feel complete without them in the world. And it's really exciting to get to share them

There are four different sections in this record starting with my 2016 shoegaze-y Lower East Side rock band and moving to my 2014 independent record, Blood Ballet, my first band, Del Water Gap, and my debut record, The Echo released in 2012 just as I was finishing high school. The record is in reverse chronological order because it's how I remember it. You know, you tell the story from the beginning, but it's sort of impossible to tell where the story actually starts. You know, does it start with my first harp lesson when I was six and begged my parents for lessons? Does it start when I'm thirteen and I'm in high school and I have so many hormones I don't know what to do with them and I start writing them into songs? It's impossible to say, but when I look back on this time I think of it back to front, and I also like the idea that you can hear me get younger. I think that that's hilarious. Like, I like that there's some weird Benjamin Button timeline to the whole thing. It just makes me laugh, and I also think leaving you with those earliest recordings makes the future so much sweeter