Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter and producer Maggie Rogers recently announced her second album Surrender (July 29, Capitol Records), and has now shared her first proper single in three years, “That’s Where I Am.” The release follows Rogers’ acclaimed 2019 debut Heard It in a Past Life and her 2020 compilation Notes from the Archive: Recordings 2011-2016.
“That’s Where I Am” is a gleaming synth-pop jam in which Rogers celebrates the love of a lifetime over a melodic vocal loop, hand claps (that become loose, upbeat live drums) and synth drone, swearing in its anthemic choruses, “It all works out in the end / Wherever you go, that’s wh?re I am / Boulders turn into sand / Wher?ver you go, that’s where I am.” It sounds like an artist with one foot in late-’90s, sunny, Sheryl Crow-style radio fare and the other in our electronics-dominated pop present—moreover, it sounds like Maggie Rogers.
Co-producing alongside her returning Heard It in a Past Life collaborator Kid Harpoon, Rogers recorded Surrender in her parents’ garage, New York City’s Electric Lady Studios, and Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath, England. She wrote the record after retreating to coastal Maine in early 2020, distancing herself from the whirlwind that had surrounded her debut album—in seclusion, Rogers “eventually felt called to create music with the same sense of playful, open exploration and internal discovery that made her fall in love with writing and producing music back in high school.”
Rogers says of her new single and video in a statement:
“That’s Where I Am” is a story I’d been carrying around for many years, the story of a love that had been with me and unfolding for a long time. A lot of the events that Surrender chronicles take place in New York City. In the stark solitude and distance of covid, it was the backdrop for all my claustrophobic fantasies. The proximity and pleasure of just staring at strangers. The way a night could unfold. Events that interrupt your day instead of having to consciously and deliberately make each decision. I longed for someone to sweat on me. Spill their beer on my shoes. Be too tall for me to see at the concert. The city’s music and attitude was a big source of inspiration for the record. For all these reasons, there was only ever one place we could shoot the video. I’ve always said that New York is the city that winks back. It’s a main character. It’s a friend, a lover, an enemy sometimes. In many ways, the music video is about that New York love story. And on those filming days, it felt like the city was on our side. We got our first taste of true New York spring. That feral downtown explosion when suddenly everyone’s smoking on the sidewalks in short sleeves and drinking gin and tonics. The appearance of a few classic New York characters—David Byrne, The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser, and photographer Quil Lemons—made the daydream feel complete.
Rogers will perform on Day 3 of Coachella 2022 this weekend and next, April 17 and 24.
Watch the “That’s Where I Am” video (co-directed by Rogers, Michael Scanlon and Warren Fu) and see the Surrender art (no tracklist yet) below. You can preorder the album here.
Surrender Art:
