Madison Cunningham at Vogue Theatre

Madison Cunningham started Friday’s concert at the piano, wailing a single phrase into the mic and setting the tone for the evening: “Shatter into form.” Later in the evening, she thanked the audience at the Vogue Theatre for listening to her new album Ace, calling the songs on it “really dreary and sad.”

She’s not wrong about that. Ace is markedly different from the album that came before it, Revealer, which is lyrically and rhythmically more upbeat. Even when she sang songs from that album, she stripped them down and recontextualized them to fit into this stage of her musical journey. To help understand what stage that is, here are some lyrics from Ace:

“There’s a water leak the size of Berlin

Coming from this vessel that we’re in

Running from my eyes to your chin”

“Did I get your love

At the price of my heart?”

“Is that the origin

Meaning of divorce?

To separate yourself

Or shatter into form”

Heartbreak was ever-present throughout this performance. Every song felt like a diary entry, a sharing with the world of some challenge and discovery that Cunningham lived through. The stage was lit to feel like the musicians were performing underwater, surrounded by a set of marshy reeds and rocks.

Cunningham was joined on stage by just one other musician, but if you closed your eyes, you would think you were listening to a full band. Jesse Chandler, heavily featured on Ace and involved in its production, reached flow state as he switched seamlessly between clarinet, flute, and a variety of other instruments. The choice to tour with a limited band works for this album, and perhaps explains the decision to strip down her more heavily produced pieces.

Songwriting has long been one of Cunningham’s greatest strengths. Her lyrics are punchy and witty, and always full of honesty and universal, relatable truths about life and love. She’s the right one to sing these songs too—regardless of how quick or vocally demanding the songs were, her voice remained the most impressive instrument on stage. The harmonizing in “Wake” was especially mesmerizing, as Chandler and Cunningham sang:

“As the grand illusion frays

It hits me as I drive away

I’ll never see your hair go gray”

A generational talent, Cunningham is an artist who seems to impress every musician she comes across. She and Andrew Bird released an album together a few years ago that is also worth a listen. Bahamas also released a number of songs with her when they toured together a few years back, and when she toured with Hozier, he brought her out to sing with him. Seeing her live, it’s not hard to understand why other artists are so keen to collaborate—there’s just something special about her.

Cunningham ended the evening with a crowd pleaser: a (stripped down, of course) rendition of her most well-known song, “Song in my Head.” The lyrics might mean something different to her now, as she sang “Attending funerals and watching friends break their vows,” and “I’m not afraid, not afraid to lose.”

This most recent album, and this show, are about reckoning with what went wrong, and where to go from rock bottom. Perhaps the message is that you can only shatter first, before returning to form. It’ll be interesting to see what form Cunningham’s sound takes next; whether she continues down this more introspective and toned down path, or returns to more of an indie rock vibe, I’ll happily be along for the ride.