Cognizance by BRENDA CARSEY

“Cognizance” is Brenda Carsey’s highly anticipated new album. The album was produced, composed, and co-mixed by Carsey who worked in collaboration with Grammy award winning engineer and mixer extraordinaire Mark Rains of Station House Studio in Los Angeles, CA (who has worked with the likes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Death Valley Girls, Jaime Wyatt, Miya Folick, and Philip Sayce to name a few). The music for this album was written over a couple year period from 2017 to 2019. At the end of 2019 Carsey ran a successful Indiegogo campaign with plans of going into the studio to begin tracking in the spring of 2020. This plan was curtailed by the Covid shutdown. After over a year of eager waiting, Carsey finally went into the studio at the end of April 2021 to begin tracking “Cognizance” along with an all star lineup of some of LA’s best musicians including Kyle Crane (drums), Nick Campbell (bass), Michael Day (guitar), Rebecca Schlappich Charles (violin), Jean-Paul Barjon (cello), Jonah Levine (trombone), Leider Chapotin (trumpet), and David Otis (alto saxophone).

All thirteen tracks of “Cognizance” plus the extended live-in-studio bonus track (only available on the vinyl record version of the album) including all instruments, vocals, scratch tracks, and over-dubs were tracked in just 9 days. Everything was tracked at Station House Studios except for the final piano which was tracked by Rains at Moosecat Recording. The album was mastered at The Bakery Mastering with digital mastering by Jett Gallindo and vinyl mastering and lacquer cutting by Peter Hewitt-Dutton.

“Cognizance”, a title aptly chosen for this beautiful album of awareness, experience and growth, has a massive breadth of tones, textures, instruments, and genres. It covers a range of subjects including family, love, breakups, public shootings, partying, fear, depression, isolation, the experience of being a woman in the music industry and in life at large, finding new love, and more. Carsey says “This album is the best quality album I have created to date…I wanted to push myself sonically beyond anything I have ever created and reach into the depths of my soul to bring to life art with a message through music that keeps the mind guessing and the heart happy!”

“Cognizance” is Carsey’s second full-length studio album (preceded by her previous full-length studio album “Solitary Refinement” released in 2017), and crowns a discography of adventurous and eclectic self-recorded/produced releases including “Box Cutter” (2020), “Sirens” (2020) – engineered by Nicholas Tashjian, “Satya” (2014), “Lazy Daze” (2012), and “Side Show” (2011).

Tracklist

1.	Just Trying To Do My Thing	3:34

2.	Home	6:19

3.	Bang Bang	4:17

4.	This Damn Place	3:56

5.	Unfortunate Men	4:01

6.	Rebel Walls	4:51

7.	I'm Sorry	4:48

8.	Goat and Bull	2:47

9.	But You're Alive	3:18

10.	Man of Mine	3:23

11.	Have You Ever Hid Love Away	3:24

12.	Party's Over	3:52

13.	Life Can Be A Bitch	1:24

Credits

released January 9, 2023

Cognizance by Brenda Carsey
© 2022 Brenda R. Carsey

produced by Brenda Carsey
engineered by Mark Rains of Station House Studio
mixed by Mark Rains and Brenda Carsey
mastered by Jett Gallindo of The Bakery Mastering
songs, melodies, lyrics, and arrangements by Brenda Carsey
lead vocals, harmonies, piano, acoustic guitar, Rhodes, Hammond M3 organ by Brenda Carsey
drums and percussion by Kyle Crane
bass by Nick Campbell
guitar by Michael Day
violin by Rebecca Schlappich Charles
cello by Jean-Paul Barjon
Trombone by Jonah Levine
trumpet by Leider Chapotin
alto Sax by David Otis
women's choir on 'Unfortunate Men' feat. Whitney Tai, Phoebe Silva, Triona O'Neill, Leila Milki, Ashley Keene

photography by Morgan Demeter
font and formatting by Piknik Press

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