Indigo De Souza Any Shape You Take

“Everything has to be said.” This is the conviction guiding Indigo De Souza’s sophomore album, Any Shape You Take. This dynamic record successfully creates a container for the full spectrum—pushing through and againstevery emotion: “I wanted this album to give a feeling of shifting with and embracing change. These songs camefrom a turbulent time when I was coming to self-love through many existential crises and shifts in perspective.”

Faithful to its name, Any Shape You Take changes form to match the tenor of each story it tells. “The album titleis a nod to the many shapes I take musically. I don’t feel that I fully embody any particular genre—all of themusic just comes from the universe that is my ever-shifting brain/heart/world,” says Indigo. This sonic range isunified by Indigo’s strikingly confessional and effortless approach to songwriting, a signature first introduced inher debut, self-released LP, I Love My Mom. Written in quick succession, Indigo sees these two records ascompanion pieces, both distinct but in communion with each other: “Many of the songs on these two recordscame from the same season in my life and a certain version of myself which I feel much further from now.”

Throughout Any Shape You Take, Indigo reflects on her relationships as she reckons with a deeper need toredefine how to fully inhabit spaces of love and connection.“It feels so important for me to see people throughchange. To accept people for the many shapes they take, whether those shapes fit into your life or not. Thisalbum is a reflection of that. I have undergone so much change in my life and I am so deeply grateful to thepeople who have seen me through it without judgment and without attachment to skins I’m shifting out of.”

Growing up in a conservative small town in the mountains of North Carolina, Indigo started playing guitarwhen she was nine years old. “Music was a natural occurrence in my life. My dad is a bossa nova guitarist andsinger from Brazil and so I think I just had it in my blood from birth.” It wasn’t until moving to Asheville, NC thatIndigo began to move into her current sound, developing a writing practice that feeds from the currents thatsurround her: “Sometimes it feels like I am soaking up the energies of people around me and making art from aspace that is more a collective body than just my own.”

At the forefront of all De Souza’s projects is her magnetism—her unique quality of spirit that is both buoyantand wise. While her backing band has undergone shifts between releases, her sound has stayed tethered to hervision. Any Shape You Take is the first full-length album that Indigo produced herself. Teaming up with executive producer Brad Cook (Bon Iver, Waxahatchee, The War on Drugs) and engineers/producers Alex Farrar and AdamMcDaniel, Indigo recorded the album at Betty’s, Sylvan Esso’s studio in Chapel Hill, NC and finished it withadditional production and mixing at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville. Moving past the limitations of a homestudio, Indigo could finally embody the full reach of her sound: “It felt really exciting to lean into my poptendencies more than I have in the past and to trust my intuition to take the songs where I felt they should go.I had the tools to do it and collaborators who were willing to go there with me.”

“I feel very much like a shape-shifter with my music, I’m always trying to embody a balance between theexistential weight and the overflowing sense of love I feel in the world.” It is exactly this balance that Indigostrikes in her Saddle Creek debut, Any Shape You Take. A listening experience that gives back, as you shed andshape-shift along with her.