For Your Consideration
“Music is an auditory artform and the freedom of imagination listening to music provides is limitless”
Brenda Carsey is fresh off her first Grammy Consideration for her latest album “Cognizance”. She is quickly becoming a staple in the Los Angeles music scene, and can be found performing, and hosting live music all over the city. We had the opportunity to check out one of her recent residency shows at “The Virgil” in Silverlake and we’re blown away by not only her performance but her whole line up of guest musicians and talent. Recently on The Indie LA Experience Podcast we dug into her personal journey as a music artist in Los Angeles, but with all the irons she has in the fire, and hats this performer juggles, we had to check back in and get all the latest updates.
How are things going since we last spoke on the podcast? Talk to us more about your most recent album Cognizance! Has it achieved what you set out to do with it? What can we expect to see from you in 2024?
Things have been going well! Since we last spoke, I had a fabulous month long residency at The Virgil to celebrate my newest album "Cognizance", played a great show at Gold-Diggers where I introduced a full set of 100% new music to preview what's to come from me musically, had my birthday and a huge birthday bash and show at Harvard & Stone, and I just went to the Grammy Awards, not only to enjoy and soak it all in but also to celebrate my first Grammy consideration for my album "Cognizance". This was a major goal of mine for this album and I was very happy to be able to achieve it! I just celebrated the one year anniversary of "Cognizance" being released into the world by releasing a brand new all live album, "Cognizance Live At Moroccan Lounge". This live album is only available on my Bandcamp page and includes the performance of all 13 tracks from "Cognizance" performed live at Moroccan Lounge in Los Angeles as a 12-piece band! It additionally includes 2 extra bonus tracks plus all of the funny, sassy, mushy stage banter you come to expect and love from a BC show! I am also celebrating the release of this live album with the release of 3 new gorgeous live videos on my YouTube page. Definitely worth the watch! Celebrating this album and this major accomplishment in all the ways I can! In addition to the above, since we last spoke I continued to play my cover gigs (aka work) and have been resting, going on walks, taking it easy, and reflecting on what I want to do next. This year you can definitely expect me to release a couple of new singles that I am collaborating with another artist and producer on. We are aiming for an early summer release. Very excited to share that with you all. I am also slowly beginning the planning stages of my next full-length album. I am almost done writing it and playing the ones that have been written already out live is a great way to begin imagining instrumentation and production details. I don't imagine my next album coming out till later next year but I'll definitely be giving you some goodies to enjoy before then!
Talk to us about more about the residency shows you did at the Virgil in Silverlake, what was the experience like hosting this live music series? You curated a different line up each week, what were some of the highlight moments for you?
The residency was a blast! So much fun. It was a huge amount of work and energy to pull it all off from booking all of the bands, eight in total, to making the schedule for each week and running and producing the show pace, timing, and vibe for each week, to rehearsing and managing my band, to booking audio, door, and merch assistants for each week, and then some! I love every single band I booked! They are all friends of mine and all people who brought their own unique magic to the stage. I think the biggest highlight for the whole month was the residency finale show and Halloween pregame. My band all dressed up in crazy costumes, including myself who dressed up as a humanoid metallic/chrome alien. I performed a lip sync and dance to Jamiroquai's "Cosmic Girl" as this alien character to begin my set off, had a blast playing with my band, and closed the night out with a cover of Ginuwine's "Pony" along with BodaciousThang and Jessica Vines, who were both on the bill that night. Just an epic evening of music and women who truly rock top to bottom. You can watch highlight reels from each of the four residency shows on my Instagram page.
How do you see or hope to see the music industry evolve in the next 5 years? In general and in LA specifically.
I hope to experience more protection, respect, and preciousness for music and music makers in the form of better treatment and payment by all digital streaming platforms and social media platforms. I hope for there to be better protection for music makers in the form of laws and limitations on the DSRs and social sites. This is a subject I can go incredibly deep into, but it's so dense and would be an essay in and of itself. I hope to experience a rebirth in listeners listening to and enjoying music for music's sake and not because it is attached to a visual medium. Music is an auditory artform and the freedom of imagination listening to music provides is limitless. Attaching audio to visuals can sometimes limit a listener's ability to interpret, imagine, and paint in their mind their own unique internal visual accompaniment. Having a visual accompaniment to an auditory piece can be very powerful and part of the musician's vision.
I just hope we can get back to a place where there isn't an expectation or a requirement to have a visual component for an auditory piece of art and that it can be a choice of each musician if they want to have that or not and that that decision wouldn't change the amount of engagement received on their music.
Did You Miss The Podcast? Check out Season 2 Brenda Carsey “Committed To Greatness”
With all the opportunity and tools available for artists to create/produce/publish and promote their own work nowadays, what does success look like to you?
Success to me looks like not giving up, staying true to yourself and your artistic vision, experimenting, growing, staying flexible and open, and remembering to have fun!
Where can our Readers and Listeners go to find out more about your latest Album, Upcoming Shows, and Updates?
Help me celebrate 1 year of "Cognizance" by:
1. Listening to the studio album on your favorite platform
2. Listening to my brand new live album
3. Watching and listening to my brand new live videos
4. Buying limited edition Cognizance merch on my Bandcamp page (this also helps fund my new upcoming projects!
Stay up to date on all of my upcoming tour dates via my artist website or follow me on Bandsintown!
