Success often doesn’t look like a straight line. There are many diversions – side quests and roadside attractions that inform and inspire creative work. Quiet Takes’ Sarah Magill has taken many of those alternate routes. But, those side streets have resulted in the triumphant new single “Meri Said”.
Magill has released a handful of singles since 2020. But, her upcoming debut record Regrets Only (available February 15th) offers us her clearest and boldest artistic vision yet. Recorded with producer Zach Hanson in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, the album reflects the bitter Midwestern cold and the loneliness that often accompanies the creative journey. Magill writes on the road, and the endless possibilities are reflected in her songs.
Today Glide is excited to premiere “Meri Said,” an understated pop anthem. Warm synthesizers blend with bit-crushed percussion to create a pulsing, ethereal backdrop for Magill’s storytelling. If you close your eyes, you can see the open highway ahead. The verses feature snippets of conversations, but only abstract images. Magill sings:
Meri said
I wanna slipstream ice
Pity the proof
Smile fierce & kind
It’s that kind of impressionistic lyricism that allows the listener to find themselves in those same conversations, taking in bits of small talk in between moments of inner-dialogue. The song’s call-and-response chorus showcases Magill’s immersion in pop music across all the decades. You’ll find yourself humming it for weeks. There’s something timeless in the song’s sound – it could exist anywhere from the mid-80s to late last night.
Magill, through her moniker Quiet Takes, is taking us on a sonic midnight ride. The glow of the headlights and the dull hum of the highway can be heard in these songs. It’s a rare thing for an artist to imbue their work with a clear, crystalized vision. If “Meri Said” is a backwoods detour, then we are in for the full American road trip on the forthcoming album Regrets Only.
Watch the video and read our interview with Magill below…
You worked with a handful of musicians on these songs. What was the arranging process like? Did you come into the recording sessions with fully formed arrangements? Or, did you lean on others to help you flesh out the songs?
Thanks for asking about this! A couple of the demos I brought to producer Zach Hanson were live takes of just me and keys, but most were as fully built-out blueprints as I could manage with my Prophet, voice & ProTools. Some parts of those demos were synth stand-ins for things I don’t play (bass, guitar) or placeholders (i.e., same hook here, but with a different sound). Some elements, usually vocal stacks, I was more tied to. I also wrote a creative brief defining the theme/tone of the album, how that might translate sonically, and a reference playlist.
Zach came back with a detailed doc of ideas track-by-track, and we went from there. We changed very little structurally with the songs, but they started to really live when each collaborator brought their own particular magic. In addition to Zach and me, “Meri Said” has S. Carey on drums and Ben Lester on pedal steel.
This is my favorite way of working: Getting on the same page with theme/tone/emotion/context and then letting everyone play inside those borders. There’s room for discovery then. The instrumental hook on “Meri Said” ended up coming from a little sound toy called a Loopy Lou Zach found on a shelf at The Hive (the studio we recorded at in Eau Claire, WI) layered over a vintage synth bed. You can’t really plan for that kind of invention!
Overall, the process was less like fleshing out skeletons and more like animating mannequins.
And we ended up using a lot more than I expected to from the demos (the drum programming and some of the synth parts on “Meri Said” are original, for example), which helped build my confidence as a DIY bedroom producer — ha.
You mentioned that this album was born in a hotel room shower in the Fall of 2021. How do you distill these small, emotional snapshots into your songs?
I journal. I write to process, to understand, to sense-make, to remember. Then ideas and images from that process leak over into lyrics, but not always directly. The hotel room shower shame wave that sparked “Oxbow Shower,” and then, really, the whole album, was more immediate. I journaled that night and by the next morning, some hazy lyrics were emerging. “Meri Said” was more of a patchwork lyrical project over time. The verses each paraphrase advice that came to me right when I needed it, both through close friends and internet strangers. Maybe the through line is just paying attention: When something makes me feel deeply, I try to notice and write about why.
How does travel inspire you? How do you know which memories and locations are ones you’d like to immortalize in song?
Oh, I never know until something grows into a song! But I’m always collecting: sounds, photos, videos, images, feelings, lyric scraps. I became a nomad almost two years ago, so I’ve traveled quite a bit lately (although I’m experimenting with making Eau Claire more of my home base). Always traveling means always collecting. But I don’t think you have to travel to find novel things to pay attention to. There are infinite things to notice everywhere, even if you stay in one place. Travel can help strengthen those attention and noticing skills: It’s harder to take new things for granted. I hope I can keep a traveler mentality no matter if I’m wandering or rooting at a particular moment.
What can we expect from the rest of Regrets Only? Is the rest of the album this dreamy? If so, we’re in for a treat!
Thanks so much! I’m really proud of what we made on Regrets Only. I think it has pretty good range when it comes to the indie folk playground. In some way, all of the songs have to do with learning from your regrets and choosing open roads and mysteries over dead ends and certainties. My ultimate fantasy is that listening to it helps spur someone else on to revisit their regrets — and turn them into possibilities instead.
