Album Review: Maggie Rogers - Notes from the Archive: Recordings 2011-2016 (With Commentary)

Maggie Rogers

Released: December 18, 2020

Label: Debay Sounds, LLC

Written by Nick Ruszkowski

Excitement always kicks in when a favorite artist announces new music. Fans are eager to see how they have grown and in what directions since their latest beloved album. In the case of Maggie Rogers, who, for the past three years, has had only one album, one single, and one EP in her public canon, fans were holding their breath to see what would come to follow the electro-alt-pop masterpiece that was 2019’s Heard It In A Past Life.

Straight out of her senior year at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, a video of Pharrell Williams reacting to Rogers’s ‘Alaska’ from her solo EP Now That The Light Is Fading (which would later be included in Past Life) achieved viral circulation. Since then, Rogers has appeared as a musical guest on SNL, played international stages, and was even featured on Sesame Street — the big leagues. So, how would this 26-years-old artist respond to the sudden notoriety? Could she seize the opportunity by laying down another slam-dunk album, cementing her path forward as a powerhouse in the cluttered world of pop music?

Above all, fans wondered, could she do it without losing her authenticity and originality as an artist?

Maggie Rogers’s answer came this fall with the announcement of Notes from the Archive: Recordings 2011-2016. The record would be a compilation of previously recorded music, some of which had been individually distributed, some that had never before seen the light of day; it would be a musical prequel. In the announcement, Rogers explained her aim: “This record is about looking back on those ten years of work. It is about looking to the future by honoring the past.” 

Responses ranged from supportive to outraged that a blossoming artist would turn her momentum to retrospection, rather than responding to the demand for new music. No matter your opinion, the message was clear: Rogers was denouncing the opportunity to take the straight and narrow path to pop stardom. ‘I’m glad you see me,’ she was telling us, ‘now see everything.’ She would not simply be what we demanded: another beautiful, young, talented pop artist.

This was to be her story.

On December 18th, The Archive was released from Rogers’s personal label Dabey Sounds. It is a hefty 16 tracks, including an interlude from a recording session with Holden Jaffe of Del Water Gap. I imagine the record as a story with four chapters, containing three complete albums/EPs and one single, each of different styles and each from a different moment in Rogers’s life. 

The record was released with an in-depth commentary, breaking between each of the chapters to contextualize the upcoming tracks with stories of where she was in her life at the time they were written as well as what they mean to her now. The style makes for an intimate listening experience. 

“So much of this record is about the process. It’s about honoring the time it takes to come to a full form.” Hearing Rogers speaks of herself now as fulfilled could be interpreted as a naive assertion that her art has stagnated and will not continue to develop. But, in the context of a record about growth, I believe Rogers is promising that no matter how she changes in the future, she will be a full picture; not static, but never incomplete.

The record takes us in reverse chronological order from the end of college, back to her high school days. Rogers’s promises that the work remains unaltered from its original mixing; for such an established artist to release music recorded by high school and college students is strikingly humble. 

At 19, I fall in the middle of Rogers’s age range when this music was recorded. This record is a gift to young people like myself. Someone I regard as incredibly deserving of her success on the basis of her exceptional talent is granting us a glimpse into her development. With Notes from the Archive, Rogers proves that she is not above growth.

Chapter 1: The Rock EP - 2016

The first four tracks, ‘Celadon & Gold,’ ‘Together,’ ‘Steady Now,’ and ‘One More Afternoon,’ make up a never-before-released collection originally titled The Rock EP. The songs were written and recorded by Rogers and her band in her final years at Tisch. Rogers recalls being terrified of coming up with and committing to a band name, so, as a group, they were called ‘Maggie Rogers.’ 

In the commentary released with the record, Rogers describes playing “classic downtown venues” and writing music in the East Village apartment she shared with her best friend and a cat. Rogers explains that, during this time in her career, she was focused on having fun with her music above all; she enjoyed playing guitar on stage and discovering her voice at loud, sweaty New York City venues. 

The Rock EP was reportedly written at the same time that Rogers began experimenting with the electronic music that would eventually be released on Now That The Light Is Fading. Understanding the binate origins of Fading and The Rock paints a portrait of an artist at a stylistic crossroads. The two works share fundamental thematic similarities, but, like siblings that define their individual identities by their dissimilarities, they could not be more different in form. 

The four tracks are loaded with pounding drums, crashing cymbals, and mostly uptempo guitar. Taking after the midwest-indie sound of bands like American Football, the tracks lack the bright and clear, vocal-centered quality Maggie Rogers fans are familiar with. Instead, muted and processed vocals soaked with melancholy blend in duet with prominent, metallic guitar melodies. Themes include the uncertainty of the post-graduation future, the peril of young lovers at the crux of necessary life changes, and the early death of a close friend. 

In ‘Together,’ Rogers references struggling with the pilgrimage to Southern California many hopeful artists make upon completing college.

“And, oh, that's good and fine / But darling, I'm still terrified / That you'll choose Los Angeles over me / I’m staring at my toes / If only I could make them go where I'd bе happy”

Chapter 2: Blood Ballet - 2014

The next six tracks, ‘Blood Ballet,’ ‘Resonant Body,’ ‘Symmetry,’ ‘Little Joys,’ ‘On The Page,’ and ‘James,’ compose Rogers’s second independent album Blood Ballet. It was written and recorded during her early years at NYU, ages 18-20. Rogers explains that a ‘blood ballet’ refers to the beauty that can sometimes be inherent to destruction. Upon moving to New York City at the age of 18, Rogers recalls that “everything I believed to be true was completely blown open and changed.” 

The album experiments with a couple different styles and captures Rogers’s transition from banjo to guitar, a change Rogers reports as central to the process of coming into her own. Rogers explains that growing up she chose to practice banjo because it allowed her to musically compliment guitar artists, who, she points out, were mostly men, and play alongside them, rather than competing for the spotlight. 

The first song, ‘Blood Ballet,’ is a rough recording of Rogers’s unaltered voice over a roaring acoustic guitar. The lyrics are complex, poetic, and emotional. She pleads with a partner to stay. I can only imagine Rogers is yearning for more than lost love; perhaps lost innocence, simplicity, or the peace of childhood — an idea that recurs as the album continues.

Furthermore, ‘James’ and ‘On The Page’ describes the joys of first love and the bittersweet beauty of first heartbreak. Both tracks are full of hope that love will come again, and, even though the beck-and-call of the road ahead pulls you apart, your cherished companions will live beautiful lives of their own making. 

Chapter 3: New Song - Del Water Gap, 2013

Maggie Rogers and Holden Jaffe met growing up at summer camp in Maine. Upon matriculating at NYU, the duo recognized one another in a music class. The band Del Water Gap was born in their dorm rooms. Rogers remembers feeling “cool” for the first time, having permission to dream, and feeling part of “something bigger” than herself. 

The last song the duo wrote together remained untitled, referred to as “The New Song.” It was recorded by a group of NYU senior sound-engineering students for an assignment. The track was never released and, at the end of their freshman year, the pair split to work as solo artists, Jaffe keeping the band name. 

The chapter opens with an audio clip from the recording session. “Can we start over?” Jaffe asks, followed by a cough. The snippet opens a window into the recording process. Both voices sound young and excited.

“Does it feel slow?” “Can’t tell.” “I like it. I think it feels fine.”

Then the simple three-chord guitar melody starts again from the beginning. 

‘New Song’ is the sand-out track of the album. It is simply beautiful. The two voices play off one another with innocences and confidence. Maggie Rogers’s banjo rings, not flawlessly, but gracefully. The song culminates with a swell of harmony, “I don’t mind it” they agree — the promise of kids in love. They will suffer each other’s flaws and grow together. They will be each other’s source of stability through all of life’s twists.

Chapter 4: The Echo - 2012 

At this point in the record, it feels as though we’ve navigated our way deep into the core of something beautiful. The final four songs were released in May of 2012, just before Maggie Rogers graduated from high school. They were written and recorded between the ages of 16 and 18. The tracks feature Rogers on banjo and percussion along with two of her classmates on violin and cello. 

Rogers now says that at this time in her life, she was freed by her innocence. She did not know her own limitations and made music where she could, how she could. She was not interested in waiting patiently for her opportunity to create as an adult or more experienced musician. 

In ‘Anybody,’ ‘Kids Like Us,’ ‘Wolves,’ and ’Satellite’ Rogers is aware of her youth and contemplates growing into adulthood. The tone is soft and folksy, but the young artist holds nothing back. She puts forth her fullest production, swelling to a maximal climax in ‘Satellites.’ 

Rogers admits to cringing slightly at some of what she hears on the recordings, but recognizes that this music meant everything to her at the time she made it, and it is not her place now to dishonor and invalidate a younger version of herself. She describes recording in a teacher’s office in her high school after hours. She remembers her identity as ‘the music girl,’ allowing listeners to imagine the perspectives of the other student in her graduating class: what do they think of her now?

Takeaways: 

Maggie Rogers is committed to honoring the artistic process and herself as an artist. Whatever comes next, it will be rooted in her full story. Maybe she’ll change course again, perhaps revisiting her folk roots or drawing from her experience in the New York City band scene. No matter what, she promises to bring genuine self-reflection to the pop genre — something it could stand to gain.