Madison Cunningham

Depending on the game, an *Ace* can be the highest or lowest card, zero or infinity. A breakup feels similar—one path crumbles, while all others remain infinitely possible. How do you write about heartbreak when you’re going through it? *Ace*, GRAMMY award-winner Madison Cunningham’s third record for Verve Forecast, tracks every part of it: falling out of love, having your heart broken, and then falling in love again. Co-produced by Cunningham and Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Rilo Kiley, Bahamas, Peach Pit), the fourteen-track album is honest and full of heart, even as it breaks.

*Ace* builds off of the success of *Revealer* (2022), a darkly funny portrait of an artist that won Cunningham her GRAMMY for “Best Folk Album,” but it is a different record. A slow burn until it wasn’t. It follows a period of writer's block. On *Revealer* and her debut album *Who Are You Now* (2019), Cunningham says that she was writing songs about heartbreak, but they weren’t about her heartbreak. They were sketches, observations. Cunningham wanted *Ace* to be emotions first. Heartbreaking and lush and bold.

Cunningham’s first single from *Ace*, “My Full Name,” was released to praise by *PASTE* who calls the lyrics, “simultaneously sprawling and intimate,” recalling “an ancient work of poetry.” On *Ace*, which Cunningham serves as co-producer, she wanted piano to move into the foreground. “I wanted it to feel like a mountain peak,” says Cunningham, “I wanted *Ace* to feel like a mountain we built together.” *Ace* is a record that feels alive and lush in all the ways Cunningham hoped for when she started writing. It is a record of mastery and honesty. Cunningham loves every single song on it. You can tell.

Presented by Z|ART Agency GmbH.

Under 16 years, with legal guardian. Under 6 years, no entrance.