Macie Stewart Releases Striking & Cinematic New Suite ‘When The Distance Is Blue’
PRAISE FOR International Anthem
“The track ‘Spring Becomes New, Spring Becomes You,’ unfolds as a minimalistic waltz for prepared piano and string trio. Clanking piano motifs dissolve into pizzicato strings, while high violin harmonics hover far above; it’s at once lulling and eerie.”
“Stewart's unexpected musical choices come from following astute instincts rather than calculated decisions.”
“As perfect a vision as you can get, everything about When the Distance is Blue is just so right; every feeling, note, sensibility carefully pitched in a dreamy and ached, subtle and often mysteriously intriguing way.”
“As the tracks tumble together, they dislodge the listener in time…Stewart’s piano notes echo like bells in a Tibetan temple. The album is released at the spring solstice, as eggs are balanced on their heads and migration shifts north.”
TRACKLIST
I Forget How To Remember My Dreams (ft. Lia Kohl)
Tsukiji
Murmuration/Memorization
Spring Becomes You, Spring Becomes New
Stairwell (Before and After)
What Fills You Up Won’t Leave an Empty Cup
In Between
Disintegration
CREDITS
All compositions by Macie Stewart
Macie Stewart – piano, prepared piano, violin, voice, field recordings
Lia Kohl – cello
Whitney Johnson – viola
Zach Moore – double bass
Prepared piano with dimes, contact microphones, and guitar amp, recorded at Palisade Studios, Chicago, IL, April 2023. Prepared piano with felt recorded at International Anthem Studios, Chicago, IL, Feb 2024. String improvisations and compositions played by Lia Kohl, Whitney Johnson, Zach Moore, and Macie Stewart at Comfort Station, Chicago, IL, January 2024.
Field recording for Tsukiji recorded at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, Japan, March 2024. Field recording of vocal improvisation for Stairwell (Before and After) recorded in a stairwell at the Philharmonie de Paris in Paris, France, June 2023. Field recording for Disintegration recorded at Kansai International Airport in Osaka, Japan, March 2024.
Engineered and Mixed by Dave Vettraino
Mastered by David Allen
Album Art & Design by Zander Raymond
Today, Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, and improviser Macie Stewart releases When the Distance is Blue, her debut album for International Anthem, on LP, CD, and digital download (with streaming available April 10). Accompanying the release is the second streaming single, “I Forget How to Remember My Dreams.”
Listen to “I Forget How to Remember My Dreams (ft. Lia Kohl)” and purchase When the Distance is Blue here.
“I Forget How to Remember My Dreams” features longtime collaborator and cellist Lia Kohl, while Stewart blends intricate chamber music with folky ambient soundscapes and field recordings to build her own wistful sonic world; one that’s reminiscent of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, or Arvo Part.
Long-heralded in musician circles for her versatility, Stewart stands as a distinguished, go-to collaborator across genre and style, with a collaborative CV that reads like a dream year-end list — performing strings for Makaya McCraven, Damon Locks, or Japanese Breakfast; singing harmonies with Tweedy; arranging for Alabaster DePlume, Resavoir, Mannequin Pussy, or SZA; co-leading the jagged art-rock experimentation of Finom, her duo with songwriter Sima Cunningham. Her varied-yet-distinct sound has led to a name recognition that goes beyond the devoted liner note enthusiast, with Pitchfork saying “Macie Stewart has had a hand in making some of the best tracks of the past five years transcendent.”
Stewart describes When the Distance is Blue as “a love letter to the moments we spend in-between.” The album draws its title from Rebecca Solnit’s book of essays, A Field Guide to Getting Lost. Stewart, too, contends with the longing for all that lies out of reach, and gives shape to that longing throughout this contemplative collection with a musical lexicon which lands somewhere between Alvin Curran’s Songs and Views from the Magnetic Garden and Claire Rousay’s A Softer Focus. Here Stewart creates a striking and cinematic work through collages of prepared piano, field recordings from her various travels, and string quartet compositions featuring herself on violin, Whitney Johnson (aka Matchesse) on viola, Lia Kohl on cello, and Zach Moore on double bass.
Macie Stewart will also be on tour in support of the album this spring, with the When the Distance is Blue live ensemble featuring the string quartet heard on the record. See all dates and find tickets below — more shows TBA.
LIVE DATES
3.31.25 | Knoxville, TN | Big Ears Festival – tickets
4.3.25 | Chicago, IL | Constellation – tickets
4.29.25 | Los Angeles, CA | Healing Force of the Universe – tickets
5.8.25 | Philadelphia, PA | Solar Myth – tickets
5.11.25 | Brooklyn, NY – Roulette – tickets
ABOUT MACIE STEWART
Macie Stewart is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, and improviser based in Chicago, IL. Heralded for her versatility, Stewart works with piano, violin, guitar, voice, and synthesizers, effortlessly traversing styles and scenes. A distinguished, go-to collaborator who Pitchfork credits with “making some of the best tracks of the past five years transcendent,” Stewart’s deeply humanist and often otherworldly capacities in deep listening have shaped each collaboration as much as her technical prowess and ingenuity. Aptly called a “master of equilibrium” by DownBeat magazine, she has an uncanny ability to meet the needs of the music with precision and taste.
As a composer, Stewart’s work continues to dissolve the boundaries between disciplines. In 2021, she composed a piece for Hubbard Street Dance’s film, “Half of Us,” alongside Sima Cunningham. That same year, she worked with Sima Cunningham and Alex Grelle to produce a performance piece paying homage to Kate Bush. In 2022, Stewart composed the score for a 50-piece orchestra premiering the Pacific Northwest Ballet’s “Before I Was.” And in 2023, choreographer Robyn Mineko Williams enlisted Stewart to create a sound installation for her dreamlike performance piece, Hisako House. Most recently, Stewart was invited to compose a site-specific piece for the ESS Florisonic Installation at Lincoln Park Conservatory. As part of the longest running sound installation in North America, their twenty-minute composition titled “The World Doubles in Size” played in the conservatory’s fern room from September through November of 2024.
Stewart appears on records with International Anthem’s Makaya McCraven, Resavoir, Bex Burch, and Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra. Rooted in Chicago’s jazz and improvised music community, she was a member of Ken Vandermark’s avant-garde jazz group, Marker; co-created the improvised trio, The Few (with guitar player Steve Marquette and bassist Charlie Kirchen); and formed a duo project with cellist and sound artist, Lia Kohl (Macie Stewart & Lia Kohl). In 2014, Stewart joined with Sima Cunningham to form their experimental duo project, Finom. Since then, the band has released four records, toured extensively, and is celebrated as an avant-pop, art rock phenomena all its own. Finom’s latest release, Not God (Joyful Noise Recordings, 2024) is ripe with the unmistakable harmonies, cutting lyricism, and sonic landscapes that have captivated local and international audiences alike since the band’s inception ten years ago.
Stewart has toured with Japanese Breakfast, The Weather Station, Kevin Morby, and Tweedy; performed strings for Resavoir, Lala Lala and Kara Jackson; and performed and arranged for SZA, Whitney, Mannequin Pussy, Tasha, and V.V. Lightbody. Fueled by what she describes as an essential cross-pollination of these projects and creative communities, Stewart released her solo debut Mouth Full of Glass on Orindal Records in 2021 (and re-released on Full Time Hobby in 2022). Self-recorded, self-arranged, and self-produced during the pandemic, Mouth Full of Glass received high praise, culminating in an international tour and a self-arranged 12-piece orchestral production of the record at Chicago’s Epiphany Center for the Arts. Praised by Pitchfork for its blooming string arrangements, poetic lyricism, and “lush, baroque-tinged folk,” Stewart’s debut showcased an artist adept at shaping others’ sounds settling into her a voice all her own.
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