“Channeling her inner Joni Mitchell, Gustafson-Zook’s performance is simply gorgeous.” – Laura Whitmore, Parade
FOR RELEASE APRIL 8
NASHVILLE (March 21, 2022) – Sadie announces the release of her cottagecore folk single, “Keep Myself” on April 8. It’s off the album, Sin of Certainty, due out April 22. “Keep Myself” draws on finding the balance between keeping yourself and keeping the relationship.
In March of 2019, Gustafson-Zook had just exited her first gay relationship. She says, “As someone who has been obsessed with the idea of relationships for as long as I can remember, gay dating opened up a whole new world for me, and unsurprisingly, co-dependence emerged as a theme.” She wrote “Keep Myself” to work through her desire for the balance of keeping herself and keeping a relationship.
Gentle tension between chords mirrors the sentiment of the song: the struggle for closeness and independence within a relationship.
“How can I be alone so well until I remember what it is like to be loved?
Then I lose all my independence / Why can’t I keep myself when I’m with her?
Sin of Certainty unearths a new way of looking at identity, the world around us, and our community. Gustafson-Zook says, “I say ‘Sin’ of certainty because I don’t think that being certain should be something to strive for. Instead, I think we should uplift uncertainty, which can lead to so much growth and possibility.” Through delightful musical twists and turns, Gustafson-Zook shows that embracing uncertainty can deliver rays of wonder in unexpected places.
Sin of Certainty Track Listing
- Birdsong
- Maybe I Don’t Know
- Go Easy
- Keep Myself
- Lean In More
- Two
- Alewife
- Digestion
- Your Love Makes Me Smile
- Everyone
About Sadie Gustafson-Zook
Raised in a liberal Mennonite community in Indiana, Sadie Gustafson-Zook grew up playing music and attending quilt auctions with her folk musician parents. Life in a small town where her mother was a pastor was comfortable and straightforward, and she always felt supported in her music-making. On her new album Sin of Certainty, Gustafson-Zook explores the process of questioning all that she had taken for granted through finding a new community in the roots scene of Boston, studying jazz, and coming out as gay. She currently embraces uncertainty in her new Seattle home—a homecoming of sorts as she finds her way back to her Pacific Northwest roots (having been born in Portland, Oregon).
Praise for Sadie Gustafson-Zook
“Simply arranged with arpeggiated guitar and a focus on her lovely voice, the song builds to an urgent and poignant climax that radiates both hope and sadness…Channeling her inner Joni Mitchell, Gustafson-Zook’s performance is simply gorgeous.” – Laura Whitmore, Parade
“The stand-out though, is the sprightly fingerpicked folksy ‘Birdsong’, which, with its scatting passage, details how hearing the sound of birds triggers traumatic memories of being sexually harassed by wolf-whistling workers when she was younger, encompassing the feelings women experience all too often.” – folking.com
“Folk artist Sadie Gustafson-Zook’s EP Vol. 1 is a paradox: it’s the specificity of the lyrics that make them relatable. Gustafson-Zook sings with precision about moments in her life, from riding the train in Boston to mistaking a bird’s song for a street harasser, but her reflections on these experiences relate them to broader challenges nearly all of us contend with.” – Suzannah Weiss, Audio Femme
