Maiah Wynne Gets Personal on Brilliant Debut Album
The Envy of None singer opens up on the aptly named "Out of the Dark."
Happy New Year, and thank you for spending part of your day with Michael’s Record Collection. With a new year, I hope to bring you more new stories than I did in 2024, which was a transitional year for this newsletter and its accompanying podcast and YouTube channel. The reality of side gigs is that sometimes they must take a back seat to other things in life, and since Spotify seems reluctant to offer me Joe Rogan money, this must continue to be a side gig. That said, I remain eager to share stories about the artists and music I believe in, and such is the case in this first full week of 2025.
You may recall my 2022 newsletter about the self-titled debut album by Envy of None, a band comprised of American vocalist Maiah Wynne and three Canadian music veterans — Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, Coney Hatch bassist Andy Curran, and guitarist/keyboardist/producer Alfio Annibalini. I interviewed Wynne about that wonderful release.
Wynne, who was an absolute delight to chat with, is the subject of today’s newsletter, and this time she doesn’t have to share the spotlight, as we spoke about her outstanding (and very personal) debut solo album, Out of the Dark.
Let’s get to that story.
Some artists burst onto the scene, while others materialize more gradually, like a crew member arriving on the transporter pad in the original Star Trek series back in the 1960s. Vocalist and singer-songwriter Maiah Wynne has kind of done both.
Wynne, who has a sizable following on her YouTube channel, where she has posted videos of her original music; standout covers of well-known favorites; and songs written by the fictional character Lucy Gray in the Hunger Games book, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes; seemed to come out of nowhere to many who discovered her talents through the band Envy of None. That project gained notoriety for the involvement of Coney Hatch bassist Andy Curran and (especially) Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson. Wynne’s talent stood out even among her well-known bandmates.
She has also kind of faded in slowly from the ether, toiling and honing her skills as a solo artist through her pop-folk work for her internet audience and playing locally. That work, and perhaps some of the confidence and knowledge picked up from working with Envy of None, has culminated in Out of the Dark, her first solo album.
The record, released just weeks ago on Nov. 21 of last year, was a decade in the making and deals with some serious subject matter, including recovery from abuse, suicidal ideation, and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPSTD) suffered in her late teens and early 20s. That isn’t to say it’s a depressing album, however. Wynne’s lyrics and music touch on the darkness but offer hope and light as well, providing a balance of themes that mirrors the balance of different musical styles on the album — somber ballads, alternative rock, pop, and a mishmash of other styles, which keep the album fresh from song to song.
Out of the Dark unfolded over a decade of Wynne’s life from tracks written at age 16 through the writing of the album’s final few songs much more recently. The record loosely tells the story of her life over a 10-year period, but some of the tracks are more autobiographical than others, making the album more thematic than conceptual. In addition to songs about her personal experiences, Out of the Dark includes songs that serve as heartfelt messages to others who are suffering from some of the same hardships Wynne went through. There are even messages to her younger self. It all unfolds over the course of the 11 tracks — 10 “proper” album tracks and a bonus song.
As I wrote about the Envy of None self-titled debut album, despite the bigger names involved in that project, it was the vitality and expressiveness of Wynne’s vocals that brought the true magic to that release. From an ethereal upper range to a more dreamy, haunting, Mary Fahl-esque lower register, Wynne has a voice with versatility and flexibility.
More than just a singer, however, Wynne is a largely self-taught multi-instrumentalist. On Out of the Dark she plays guitar, bass, keyboards, piano, hammered dulcimer, synthesizer, drums, harpsichord, electric ukelele, banjo, bouzouki, percussion, and saz. That’s on top of writing the songs, producing the album, and doing some of the mixing. As if that weren’t enough, she also worked on the graphic design for the CD and booklet and provided additional photo editing.
It only seems like Wynne did everything herself, but she did enlist the help of many others, including Lifeson on guitar (tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6), as well as banjo and mandola on “Old Strings [Maiah’s Version].” Other musicians involved in the album include Envy of None’s Alfio Anibalini and Curran (synthesizers), along with Brooks Berg (guitars), Brock Bartel (guitars), Michaela Armus (clarinets), Dallas Kruse (strings), Lauren Elledge (violin), and Jim Roach (percussion, bass, synths, and drums). Roach also co-produced a few of the tracks with Wynne. Toria Beck and Kandra Tolvstad contributed some background yells and screams. Dave Cooley mastered the album tracks.
But the widest cast of musicians who contributed to the record were drummers and cellists. In addition to Wynne and Roach, Out of the Dark drummers include David Steinberg, Dylan Ryan, Elliot Jacobson, Lee Hauser, and Tyrone Hendrix. There are five cellists on the album: Bethany Joyce, Skip VonKuske, Kevin Jackson, Lauren McShane, and Doug Jenkins.
Wynne said she wrote more than 20 songs for the album but then decided to split them up over multiple releases.
“Over the last 10 years, I’ve written songs about this journey that I was on,” said Wynne, who added that she commonly processes complex emotions through music. “And I took all of the songs that felt the most connected to that story, and I put them on one record. That’s what this album is, and I feel grateful now that I’m on the other side of this trauma.
“I just think it’s important for people to have music that they connect to, something that gives them hope, something that shows them they’re not alone in these experiences. And that’s been my hope with this record, is connecting to other people who need to hear these things as well.”
Album opener “Come On” is an atmospheric ballad that shows off the different sides of Wynne’s voice — the high and ethereal bits but also her rich lower tone. She wrote the bulk of the song when she was 16 and just about to leave home, predating some of the dark times that were to come, but she added the bridge while making the album at age 26, giving the track two separate perspectives of a life divided by 10 years.
It starts quietly, building in intensity without ever getting loud and busy, and returns for a tranquil finish. Along the way, there is lovely acoustic guitar and spacey atmospherics provided largely via the cello playing of Joyce and VonKuske. Wynne plays guitar, bass, and keys, with Lifeson contributing guitar.
Although some of her darkest times were still to come when she first worked on the song, the storm clouds were clearly already looming.
Here we are again, fighting demons in our heads
Waging war against our skin, fighting the life we're living in
Ooh Come on
It's time to run.
Ooh Come on
It's time to run
“All Too Much” is a breathy piano waltz at its heart with depth provided by Joyce’s cello (and saw!) and Armus’ clarinets with some subtle guitar from Lifeson. The song features some gorgeous harmony “oohs” and Wynne’s vocal performance is heartbreakingly beautiful.
It’s easy to relate to some of Wynne’s most overwhelming dark times when following along with the lyrics.
It's all I feel all I know all I see all I'm shown
It's all too much for me
All these things overflow I can't feel I can't know
It's all too much for me
I don't want to see
Anymore
The opening two tracks are a bit somber, but they also offer lots of layers and atmosphere and feel big and cinematic. There are subtle instrumental bits you can pick out on subsequent listens, presenting interesting new layers as one spends more time with the record.
“I’m a big fan of cinematic tracks. I love a good sad song. So, I definitely leaned into that for for both of those (first two) tracks,” Wynne said. “I love a waltz too, especially a somber waltz. There's something about that and that 3/4 timing that always gets me. And combined with the strings, it just it felt right for that song.”
After the two atmospheric ballads to open the album, “What a Shame” provides the first moment of rock on the record. It’s not fast-paced, but it is heavy with an industrial feel. Maiah’s harmony lines augment the main melody for a fuller lead vocal presentation.
It’s the closest the album comes to exploring Envy of None’s musical territory, with layers of texture provided by Berg, Lifeson, and Bartel on guitar and Wynne, Ryan, and Jacobson on drums. Wynne and Tolvstad add background screams to help sell the atmosphere and the maddening frustration of the subject matter.
“The song ‘What a Shame’ definitely has a crossover with some of the Envy of None songs,” Wynne said.
Lyrically, it deals with the objectification of women in the entertainment industry — something Wynne, like too many others, has sadly been subjected to in her career.
“Just my frustration with how people are treated in that weird spotlight,” she said about her reason for including the song. “When people start to express their negative experiences with the industry or with fame, a common response is, ‘Oh, you asked for this. You should be grateful for your success. How dare you complain?’ because there’s this perceived notion that you’re succeeding, you’re winning at life, therefore you should only be grateful and it must only be a good thing.”
“Sleep” is a song Wynne had previously released digitally but worked perfectly with the album’s themes and vibe. Her vocals alternate between a sparse and almost sweetly menacing treatment to an addictive and hypnotic chorus. The lyrics plumb the depths of the inner turmoil she experienced in her personal life and paint a tragic picture of what she was battling.
No I can’t get away from these feelings
Even when I sleep I feel awake
No I can’t run away from these dreams
Even when the dark is far away
I can’t sleep
For the album version, Wynne recorded new vocals and remixed the song.
“My voice is more mature, which I think gives it a different feeling,” she said.
Berg plays guitar on “Sleep” and Joyce adds cello, but the rest of this song is all Wynne, who sings and plays guitar, bass, synthesizer, harpsichord, piano, and drums.
One of my favorite tracks from Wynne’s previously available digital library is “Fearless Girl,” which she included on the album. Again, she re-recorded vocals for it, but she didn’t have to do as much to this song as “Sleep” to make it her own for the solo album because she did so much of the original tracking and arrangement in the original version.
The song borrows from The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” in a fittingly menacing way, as that 1980s classic is about a stalker. Wynne sings “With every breath I take and every move I make” in the first pre-chorus, and original lyrics that build on that theme appear in subsequent pre-chorus lines.
Despite the somber tone of the song — driven brilliantly by the playing of four members of the Portland Cello Project — the minor key, and the darkness of the verse lyrics (I'm so tired of feeling like I can't go out alone/In this world I live in I'm not safe in my own home), it’s a positive song. The chorus lyrics are defiant and determined, showing an inner strength that allowed Wynne to ultimately triumph over her demons.
But I'm not gonna let go of the fearless girl I used to be
I'm not gonna lay down and watch this world take over me
Anymore
“Old Strings,” a song which appeared on the Envy of None debut, gets an entirely different treatment on Out of the Dark. It sounds faster because of the beat of the song, but the tempo of the vocal, Wynne says, is exactly the same as the spacier, dreamier verson on Envy of None. The drumming and Lifeson’s banjo make “Maiah’s Version” seem like a much faster song. Lifeson adds mandola and guitar. The song has almost a Cajun flavor to it with the instrumentation used in the faster sections.
Wynne said she originally envisioned “Old Strings” more closely to this version, but the Envy of None musicians opted to strip it down and make it a more atmospheric track for that band’s debut.
“This is originally how the song was,” Wynne said. “I had written it on a very old dulcimer, and it kind of had this jangly and almost frantic energy in the verses. And the feeling that I was having when I was writnig it was sort of this anxiety about getting older and not wanting to come to terms with that and the realities of time passing. There’s this feeling of trying to run away from that reality. So, it always had this sort of frenetic, old, jangly instrument feeling. I had electric guitars in the demo and a lot of dulcimers. When I sent it to the guys (in Envy of None), I thought they would like it, because it’s kind of fast-paced and there were electric guitars. And I was kind of thinking they would take the dulcimers out of it and just replace it with more electric guitars and things.
“But if you mute all of the drums, and you just keep all my synths and my vocals in there, it’s pretty close to how it ended up on the Envy of None record. I love where it ended up on the Envy of None record. I wouldn’t change that at all. I love that they opened it up and they highlighted the vocal layers and the harmonies, and this openness. So, it’s weird when you’re listening to the two versions that they’re the same tempo, but the rhythm (on the Out of the Dark version) is double timed.”
“Inside Your Head” opens almost like one of Nirvana’s slow, menacing numbers, like “Something in the Way.” The song goes through some cool tempo changes with the darker verses and the lighter chorus playing well against each other. Berg’s acoustic and nylon guitar work, subtle keys (synth and piano) from Wynne, and Joyce’s cello blend nicely together.
“This one’s a little bit of an outlier on the record,” Wynne said. “I wrote this one when I was 16 or 17. It was around the time I was starting to play some of my first shows in coffee shops. I was listening to a lot of Florence and the Machine. I was into the haunting, dramatic stuff. Lorde was really popular at the time. I think I really wanted to lean into that drama for this song. But it was also just about seeing somebody else taking their own difficulties and turning that into art, turn that into beauty, and really admiring that in somebody else and wanting to do the same thing. So, it still felt like it was relevant to all of (the themes on Out of the Dark), because it was like seeing somebody else who was able to take their pain and turn that into something beautiful, and in a weird, full-circle way, I was doing that with the album.”
The poppiest and happiest-sounding song on the record is “Work of Art.” It’s ironic that it sounds happy and poppy because it’s about taking a negative emotion — specifically, anger — and using it to get through hard times into better ones.
From the cracks in your soul, you're a work of art
To the cries in the walls of your broken heart
You're afraid of the anger that you've felt before
But now it's your rage that will win this war
You've gotta break those chains
To change your name
You've gotta fall apart
To heal your heart
You've got to heal your heart
“Despite its positive tone, there’s a lot of anger that I was processing in that song, and it was allowing myself to feel angry, and that the anger could be sort of this alchemy for getting myself into a better place,” she said. “There’s some percussion in the bridge that sounds like broken glass, and that’s because it is broken glass. I was in a rage room and I brought in a recorder and I recorded me breaking glass.”
In a just world with a level playing field, this song would be a smash hit song.
After the catchy, infectious hooks of “Work of Art,” the album flips back to dark from light with another melancholy ballad in “Where the Grass is Green,” which is the perfect showcase for Wynne’s vocals. She shows some impressive range and voice control. With Kruse’s lush string arrangements, the song veers into epic soundtrack territory. It’s not hard to imagine the song in a motion picture soundtrack for a Lord of the Rings film or Braveheart, as there’s a Celtic vibe in the way Wynne trills her vocal lines
The song was one of the more recent ones written for the album, and it represents Wynne moving from Portland, Oregon to California, breaking away from what she had known and carving her own path forward in a new place.
Not many albums close with the title track, but Out of the Dark does, with the message in the song providing the necessary conclusion to the album’s themes. Starting with just vocal and acoustic guitar, the song builds by adding cellos from VonKuske and Joyce, Elledge’s violin, Berg’s guitar, drum parts from three different drummers — Hendrix, Steinberg, and Jacobson — plus shakers, synths, bass, etc. Counting Wynne, there are four drummers credited on a song that sounds much more sparsely arranged than the credits would indicate.
“Getting the drums right on that song was a bit of a journey,” Wynne explained. “I first sent it to Elliot (Jacobson) who plays drums on a few tracks on the album, and he had a very modern approach, which I really liked. It really comes in especially on that second verse…but overall I wanted it to feel a bit more acoustic and have more nostalgia feeling. And David Steinberg recorded some stuff, but it didn’t have the full cinematic feel that I was looking for. And then finally, I went to the studio and recorded with Tyrone Hendrix, and he’s a phenomenal drummer — fantastic. And all of those pieces, together, ended up being what I wanted. Individually, it wasn’t quite there. And in the demo, I had recorded some drums, and some of that also ended up in there, so it’s like the weird combination of a lot of pieces, but at the end I was really happy with how it turned out.”
The way Wynne voices the line “and you just cry” makes you want to, even though it’s ultimately about finding your way out of the darkness.
“That’s part of why it’s the title track,” Wynne said of the song’s uplifting message. “I wanted to leave people with a feeling of hope, and this song was me finally having compassion for younger me, wanting to reach out to her, and for younger me to know that everything was going to be OK. And I think so many people need to hear that.”
Wynne shot an incredible video for the song, which required her to spend a couple of cold, uncomfortable nights either underwater entirely or getting rained on.
It’s a gorgeous song, possibly my favorite on the record at this stage, and Wynne is a vocalist who can make you feel your feelings — and, more importantly, hers.
“A Chance to Say Goodbye” is a bonus track, which Wynne said she doesn’t expect to be on the forthcoming vinyl version of the album. The opening guitar pattern sounds like a variation on the one that opens “Come On” to start the album.
“I’m a big fan of that style of electric guitar and picking with lots of reverb and I think I first got into that when I was listening to the band Daughter when I was around 16. It definitely influenced me a lot,” she said. “It’s a different chord progression but it has a very similar feel.”
It’s another mournful ballad, so while “Out of the Dark” ends the record on a hopeful note, the bonus track presents a diffent (but also fitting) conclusion by presenting a tonal bookend to the album opener. Although it’s a bonus track, it is the closer on some platforms, and I will likely miss it when I listen to it on vinyl (more on that release below).
“It’s not one that I necessarily saw as ‘ this is definitely part of the album,’ but when I was looking at the different bonus tracks I wanted to include on this record, (‘A Chance to Say Goodbye’) is the one I chose, partially because tonally it fit with everything else, but also there is so much room for interpretation, and I’ve had so many people talk to me about this track in particular,” Wynne said. “If felt like a nice one to include. When I originally wrote it, it was actually for a film about a woman who was at the end of her life, and I was kind of trying to step into her shoes when I wrote those lyrics. So, it has a very literal interpretation when you look at it from that perspective, but it’s been so nice to connect with people who have connected with that song in their own lives in different ways.”
Wynne has been living with some of the songs on Out of the Dark for years, revisiting them at times, reshaping them, and finally reimagining and architecting them for the record. While staying within the tonal framework of previously written songs, she added new originals and found inventive ways of presenting them to change tempos and styles. It makes for a cohesive album that hangs together. There is such beauty, depth, texture, and atmosphere in Out of the Dark that it seems destined to be one of my favorite releases of 2024 for many years to come. It’s a remarkable achievement from an artist who never stops trying to learn her craft (and other crafts that augment it, such as graphic design and video production).
“I do feel very proud of the work that I put into this record but also very grateful for everybody else who helped bring it across the finish line and added their magic to it as well,” Wynne said.
For me, Out of the Dark was one of 2024’s most pleasant surprises, which is saying something, because I already had high expectations for the album. It is surely under the radar enough to have been overlooked on many of the year’s “best of” lists, but it has a place among the best work anyone has released in the previous 12 months. It holds up alongside albums with much bigger production budgets involving much more experienced artists and producers. Between this album and Wynne’s work with Envy of None, she has set the bar high as a comparative measuring stick for her future work.
However, knowing Wynne’s work ethic and willingness to develop new skills, I expect it’s a bar she’ll be able to clear.
Out of the Dark is available now on CD or digitally, and Wynne said that the plan is to release it soon on vinyl as well — possibly in a gatefold sleeve.
“I’m still figuring out that side of things,” she said. “Vinyl is expensive, but what I want to do is the big, fold-out insert and stuff, but we’ll have to see what’s in the budget.”
Wynne said she is also looking at putting some live dates together to promote the album, possibly this summer.
You can learn more about Wynne’s work at www.maiahwynne.com and purchase her music at her Bandcamp site.
Tracklist:
Come On (3:39)
All Too Much (3:47)
What a Shame (4:10)
Sleep (3:01)
Fearless Girl (4:40)
Old Strings [Maiah’s version] (4:17)
Inside Your Head (3:17)
Work of Art (4:16)
Where the Grass is Green (3:45)
Out of the Dark (4:51)
A Chance to Say Goodbye [bonus track] (3:26)
For my full interview with Maiah, check out the video below or download/stream Episode 140 of the Michael’s Record Collection podcast. In addition to discussing the making of Out of the Dark, Maiah spoke about some of her experiences that shaped the album’s lyrics, moving to California, the making of her (largely underwater) music video for “Out of the Dark,” Lifeson’s involvement on her solo record, what’s next for Envy of None, how she came to play so many different musical instruments, learning about filmmaking, and more.
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