Indigo De Souza
Any Shape You Take
Saddle Creek

“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 against every emotion: “I wanted this album to give a feeling of
shifting with and embracing change. These songs came from 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 title is a nod to the many shapes I take musically. I don’t feel that I fully embody any
particular genre—all of the music just comes from the universe that is my ever-shifting
brain/heart/world,” says Indigo. This sonic range is unified by Indigo’s strikingly confessional
and effortless approach to songwriting, a signature first introduced in her debut, self-released LP,
I Love My Mom. Written in quick succession, Indigo sees these two records as companion pieces,
both distinct but in communion with each other: “Many of the songs on these two records came
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 to redefine how to fully inhabit spaces of love and connection.“It feels so important
for me to see people through change. To accept people for the many shapes they take, whether
those shapes fit into your life or not. This album is a reflection of that. I have undergone so much
change in my life and I am so deeply grateful to the people who have seen me through it without
judgment and without attachment to skins I’m shifting out of.”
Lead single “Kill Me,” written during the climax of a dysfunctional relationship, opens with the
lines “Kill me slowly/ Take me with you.” This powerful plea, that begins within the quiet strum
of a single electric guitar, is diffused by Indigo’s ironic apathy—a slacker rock nonchalance that
refuses to take itself seriously: “I was really tired and fucked up from this relationship and
simultaneously so deeply in love with that person in a special way that felt very vast and more
real than anything I’d ever experienced.”
Across the table from that irreverence sits the sincerity of the single “Hold U,” a more
energized, neo soul-inspired love song that substitutes apathy for a genuine expression of care. “I
wrote ‘Hold U’ after I left that heavy season of my life and was learning how to love more
simply and functionally. I wanted to write a love song that was painfully simple.”
Growing up in a conservative small town in the mountains of North Carolina, Indigo started
playing guitar when she was nine years old. “Music was a natural occurrence in my life. My dad
is a bossa nova guitarist and singer from Brazil and so I think I just had it in my blood from
birth.” It wasn’t until moving to Asheville, NC that Indigo began to move into her current sound,
developing a writing practice that feeds from the currents that surround her: “Sometimes it feels
like I am soaking up the energies of people around me and making art from a space that is more a
collective body than just my own.”
“Real Pain,” one of the most experimental tracks on the record, is Indigo’s attempt to make that
phenomena more intentionally collaborative. Starting soft before dropping down into a
cavernous pit of layered screams and cries, “Real Pain” collages the voices of strangers—audio
bites Indigo received after posting online asking for “screams, yells and anything else.” “Hearing
these voices join together and move with my own was really powerful. The whole record was a
release for me. And I hope it can be that for others.”
At the forefront of all De Souza’s projects is her magnetism—her unique quality of spirit that is
both buoyant and wise. While her backing band has undergone shifts between releases, her sound
has stayed tethered to her vision. 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 Adam McDaniel, Indigo recorded the
album at Betty’s, Sylvan Esso’s studio in Chapel Hill, NC and finished it with additional
production and mixing at Drop of Sun Studios in Asheville. Moving past the limitations of a
home studio, Indigo could finally embody the full reach of her sound: “It felt really exciting to
lean into my pop tendencies 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 the existential weight and the overflowing sense of love I feel in the world.” It is exactly
this balance that Indigo strikes in her Saddle Creek debut, Any Shape You Take. A listening
experience that gives back, as you shed and shape-shift along with her.
Any Shape You Take is out on August 27th via Saddle Creek.