Chantal Acda released her first solo album ‘Let Your Hands Be My Guide’ in 2013, followed by the evenly beautiful ‘The Sparkle In Our Flaws’ in 2015. Past collaborators and musical soul mates include a.o. Nils Frahm, Peter Broderick, Heather Woods Broderick, Valgeir Sigurdsson, Gyda Valtysdottir and Adam Wiltzie.

“These are changing times: sad times but times that are also filled with hope. And I felt like this changing world required a different position from me, another way of relating to it. Working on this album helped me in the process. I was searching for connections: with myself, with others and with something bigger than all of us. Soon I realised that writing an album in solitude – like I usually work – started to feel hypocritical, and that playing shows at venues with great PA systems and the perfect sound and lights couldn’t feel

more different from how I normally write my music. So, I started playing in people’s living rooms. You come in all by yourself… not knowing anybody. And you start talking. About how it feels like we’re losing each other. About how I’d like to believe that the disconnect and the harshness that we feel in today’s world can be overcome thru warmth and closeness between people and more closeness with yourself. In-between songs people started sharing their stories, with me and with each other. Many stories were told in these living rooms, stories that all helped shape my album. And I asked myself the same questions during recordings: how direct are we willing to communicate anymore? We’re all showing off our best life moments on Facebook but how much talking do we still do, really? And what information is still real? And how do we rediscover directness and genuine connections?

Working with Phill Brown as a producer was a very mindful decision. Apart from his timeless brilliance, Phill still hails from the era of tape machines and thus ‘first takes’. Nowadays most recordings are perfected per every 10 seconds. Auto-tune, plugins and copy-paste have become the norm. But unless it’s being done out of a conscious functional choice, it doesn’t feel much different to me than all the fake news that we get bombarded with and it also gets in the way of the connectedness and direct communication that we all seem to crave. On this album, I wanted to hear my voice the way that it sounds in my head. Whenever we used effects it’s because we felt that they had a place there, a story to contribute to, not as an unconscious automatic next step. I wanted to hear on this record that I’m not all soft but that I have a raw side to me as well. It’s a side that I call on and question and that I need to learn to accept. I’ve noticed that by being more accepting of myself, I become less judgmental when it comes to other people. We’re only people. And I would very much like for us to see each other like that again. Just see each other, period. This album is my ode to connection, contact and consciousness.”