With a unique shift from her guitar instrumentals and external look at love, Madison Cunningham shared a sneak peek at her upcoming album “Ace.” Cunningham, a Grammy-winning artist with collaborations featuring artists like Mumford and Sons, is releasing her new album on October 10, an album of pain, healing and heartbreak.
At the 2023 Grammy Awards, Cunningham won the title “Best Folk Album” for her album “Revealer.” Now, she’s shifting her musical focus inwards.
So far, Cunningham has teased her album with the release of two tracks, “My Full Name” and “Wake (feat. Fleet Foxes).” “My Full Name” has granted Cunningham a sense of control that differs from her previous work.
“I think it’s very forward,” Cunningham said in an interview with Annenberg Media. “It’s like a ‘heart-on-a-platter’ kind of narrative, and I think there’s ownership in that even if it’s rejection. It feels like it was written for someone, like a declaration.”
In “Wake,” Cunningham showcases elements reminiscent of a back-and-forth dialogue between herself and Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, an American indie folk band.
“I feel like Robin’s voice on the track really rounded out the narrative,” Cunningham said. “I didn’t want it to feel like I’m singing at someone. I wanted it to be a two-way exchange.”
Much of Cunningham’s tracks on the album highlight this duality introduced in “Wake.” When speaking on the album and writing process behind “Wake,” Cunningham noted that she really wanted to present relationships from multiple perspectives, not just her own. With that, she notes the struggles and pressures of creating her new album and fulfilling her image of being “an artist’s artist,” as described on her website.
“I’m my most artistic when I’m not giving a shit about any of those titles that have been laid on me,” Cunningham said. “It’s about being as personal as possible and to make it general at the same time, so that it’s not like someone feeling married to my narrative. They can process themselves and see their life in it.”
A lot of Cunningham’s writing on her new album came in unfamiliar ways for her. For example, while writing “Wake,” Cunningham said she felt a frustration in the initial stages of writing, but she continued to push through her writing slump, knowing that “Wake” was essential to her overall story of heartbreak.
Cunningham said that “Moon” and “Golden Gate” were the two hardest songs on the album to write. For “Golden Gate” specifically, she described that she wanted the cadence of the song to follow a boppy fashion, but also wanted the lyrics to match the heartbreaking nature of the album as a whole. For “Moon,” Cunningham struggled with the pain of the song.
“It was so close to the bone that I had to take space and then come back to it,” Cunningham said. “It was too emotional to know how to fully articulate. It took one moment of honesty in the writing to make the whole thing feel like it was working and had a motor behind it.”
In Cunningham’s earlier albums, the songs have taken on a theme of family and identity, while her new album hints at a focus on heartbreak and romantic love. According to Cunningham, “Ace” differs from her previous works because she writes directly about her own heartbreak rather than just hearing about it. In this way, the album takes on a deeply introspective approach not only for Cunningham but also for listeners as they navigate the multiple stages of grief and moving on.
“I keep calling this album a burial ground,” Cunningham said. “It feels like each little musical vignette was a way to put something underground, like plant a grief seed, and then something grows out of that.”
Cunningham embarks on her “Ace” Tour from January 6 to April 11, 2026. Though Cunningham has toured in the past with her “Revealer” album and her debut album “Who Are You Now,” her fanbase has continually grown after her Grammy win, amplifying her tour presence.
“There’s this pressure to one-up the last thing,” Cunningham said. “I just keep trying to remember the gift is in making something that I’m deeply proud of and worked really hard for. I don’t ever look at YouTube comments. I just try to enjoy my day-to-day life.”