Evann McIntosh Logs Off And Looks Ahead
On Fantasy Fuel, the Chicago-based artist embraces cinematic storytelling and a life beyond the algorithm.
By Samuel Albert
Photos by Nicholas Cantu
- Published on
McIntosh has been writing music for as long as they can remember, releasing their first single at 14 and slowly building an impressively diverse portfolio spanning genres like bedroom-pop, R&B, rock, and, most recently, contemporary jazz. Following the success of their debut album Mojo in 2019, McIntosh told RANGE they “needed some time to live as a young adult in the real world,” finding fresh inspiration by moving from Kansas to Chicago, and diversifying their listening diet from an internet-heavy sphere to the endlessly intriguing, legendary sounds of 70s Laurel Canyon, 80s Brit-pop, and 90s alt-rock.
While leaning more into the history of modern music, McIntosh also started moving away from the internet—that ubiquitous and notorious landscape where, for an independent artist at least, individuality and creativity die as quickly as the next trend can replace them. “It was all for the betterment of the work and my art,” said McIntosh, adding that “more substance and longevity can be imbued into [their] music” by rejecting the generational crutch of chronic social media scrolling in favour of a more analog existence.
The product of this maturing—moving to a new city, growing more confident in their queer identity, and embracing vintage media—is impressively distilled on their sophomore album, Fantasy Fuel, out March 6th. The album is a huge departure from previous releases by McIntosh, exemplifying a fluid, ’90s Jazz-influenced sound without sacrificing the All-American, Midwestern teenage angst that McIntosh’s previous music so elegantly imbued into their R&B-pop sound.
McIntosh talks of the album’s rich visual and cinematic influence, which makes itself most apparent on the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off-inspired music video for “Free Ride,” a twangy, folk-rock influenced single that gorgeously blends their silky smooth vocal range with lyrics describing an open-road, laissez-faire romance. “I’m a very visual person, and film helps me rethink how I create music,” they declare. “How someone sees the stories I sing about is just as important as the music itself,” they admit.
But the collaborative spirit between genres doesn’t end there. “I find great inspiration in books as well, the title for ‘Blue Movie Magic,’ for instance, came from a Kurt Vonnegut story,” they tell RANGE, and their impulse for collaboration and invention can be seen in the impressive lineup of artists and producers who made this new album come together. From features by the iconic Meshell Ndegeocello, indie-powerhouse Maddison Cunningham, and composer Jeff Parker, Fantasy Fuel sounds like the product of a young artist truly cementing their musical identity, which in this case, is one of an amorphous and kaleidoscopic quality.
“Abe Rounds was a huge source of guidance for me, not only on the album, but as an individual,” McIntosh says, describing working with the iconic producer of musical legends like Joni Mitchell and Jon Batiste across multiple recording sessions in his L.A. studio. “I want to make music for people like me; young people who’ve perhaps been raised online but desire an existence less mediated by an algorithm,” says McIntosh, explaining that Rounds helped them nonetheless record “with no audience in mind” so the blending of genres and creative process could be less self-conscious and develop more organically.
Today, McIntosh spends their time in album promotion mode, preparing to perform live again, and listening to the likes of PJ Harvey, Sade, Tori Amos, and George Michael. While they’re still enjoying their young adulthood, hanging out with friends, and exploring the Midwestern metropolis they call home, they’re nonetheless incessantly scheming up their next project, even if right now, they’re back to a more consumptive media diet. Whether they’re imbuing their next work with the spirit (or caffeinated high) of a matcha latte or black coffee, it’s probably safe to say that whatever comes next from Evann McIntosh will be as unabashedly original, cleverly genre-fluid, and uniquely of the moment as the artist themself.
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