Dizzy's Katie Munshaw on Growing Up and Getting Vulnerable Behind a Mask in New Self-Titled Album
Katie Munshaw of Dizzy by Boy Wonder
“They come into my head and rattle around in my brain until they become something bigger,” says Katie Munshaw, vocalist of Dizzy, of the lyrics she writes for the band. “I’ve always been like that. I'm really lucky [that,] growing up, I went to an elementary school with a songwriting program, so I’ve been writing songs since grade 5 or 6,” she adds. “It’s always been a big part of my life and how I express my emotions.”
Hailing from Oshawa, the indie pop band includes Munshaw as the lead vocalist and main songwriter, and three brothers, Alex Spencer (guitar), Mackenzie Spencer (bass, vocals) and Charlie Spencer (drums, synthesizer, guitar, vocals), who’ve been playing together since high school. Their first album Baby Teeth was released to JUNO acclaim, including nominations for Breakthrough Group of the Year and Alternative Album of the Year. They are back with their third album, the self-titled Dizzy, released this summer.
Soft, sparkling, and devastating, Dizzy is a retrospective album reflecting on the heartbreaks of the past and gnawing on fears for the future. Their music blends dreamy melodies and soft vocals with some 90s influence, a sound reminiscent of bands like Soccer Mommy, fittingly referenced in the opening track, “Birthmark”.
Katie first started writing the album in 2021 (“What else was there to do then?”, she jokes), following the band’s sophomore release (The Sun and Her Scorch) a year before. Katie’s own life— her trials, tribulations, and collaborations with her band—influence her writing. Each song is a burst of stories and memories: the only thing tying them together is that they’re hers.
“So much of our second record was about getting old and dying—something weighing on my mind a lot at that time. I’d just turned 23 or 24 and was thinking ‘Oh god, my life is over.’ When it was time for this record, I thought I couldn't keep writing about getting older and death,” Katie says. The resulting Dizzy mostly reflects on the past and the present – heartbreak, disappointment, nostalgia, self-reflection, moving on, and ultimately acceptance. “It's about being in my late twenties and finally getting to know myself a little more,” she adds.
Part of this involves recognizing external pressures and how they impact her. “I turned 25 and people started asking me about getting married and having a baby,” Katie says. “Jaws” is a faster-paced change in the middle of the record, and the one song where Katie allows herself to “get that anxiety out.” To an upbeat, Lorde-esque cadence, Katie sings, “I don’t remember getting older, but somehow I’m here / falling for the same tropes as my mother dear.”
While its name was inspired by a night out with her “movie geek friend” talking about the 1975 film, the lyrics to “Jaws” explore societal expectations and grappling with the choices that come with it. “Are these things we actually want or tropes we feel pressure to take part in?” Katie muses.
While the band’s first two albums were self-produced, this one involved collaboration with famed writer and producer David Pramik, known for his work with artists including Selena Gomez, Oliver Tree, and Chloe Moriondo, whose recent album Katie was a fan of.
“We wanted to be very precise about every decision made. That clean production was what we were looking for,” Katie says on working with David for this record. “We made a big list of people we wanted to work with, whittled it down, and reached out to him, emailing him “Barking Dog” and maybe “Starlings” and saying we loved his work.”
Katie notes how his sound is very different from their own, which is what they liked about him, despite initial hesitations about bringing in a producer for the first time. “It’s always hard to let someone in and have someone critique your baby,” she says, “...but he’s the perfect person because we’re all so introverted and he's this extroverted ray of light when we can be downers.”
It wasn’t until the end of the recording process that the band collectively decided to self-title the album, though it’s an idea Katie liked from the beginning. She references an interview fellow Canadian musician Haley Blais did with Coup De Main Magazine, where she says of her own album, “If I could erase everything I’ve done before and have this represent me wholly, I’d be okay with that,” highlighting how, in many ways, she considers this her first album. “That’s how I feel about this record,” Katie says.
While the album lays bare parts of her life and anxieties, physically, she does the opposite. Katie dons a painted mask on the cover of the album, shielding her face from the cover and any of its visual material. “The mask came in pretty late,” Katie says. “I was working with my friend Ryan on visual stuff and being a baby about having my photo taken. After a few years of isolation, I did not want to be on camera.”
She recalls that he joked “Well, if it's so hard Katie, why don't you wear a mask?” And that’s what they did. “It was hard to convince everyone,” she said, but they fought for it, and then spent weeks trying to find the right mask for the job. “We went down a rabbit hole,” Katie says. “We ended up narrowing in on this one vintage brass mask we loved, [but we] didn’t look at the dimensions, so it showed up the size of my palm,” she laughs. “And we were shooting videos a week later so we panicked. Ordered a paper mache mask and begged my friend to help paint a mask.”
The resulting mask, with green-painted lips, black-rimmed eyes and swirls of pink, blue and purple makes an appearance across the band’s music videos and promotional material for the record. In a world that scrutinizes how people look, her choice to shield her face challenges expectations and brings the focus squarely on the music, its message and the people who relate to it. “I think it’s interesting for a person, particularly a woman, to make the decision for herself to take her physical appearance out of the question,” Katie says.
In the video for “Knock the Wind”, you see a masked Katie looking wistfully out the car window, as the song’s lyrics ruminate on making choices and taking action. It’s a song she has said is about “...how you can live somewhere your whole life and never really feel at home,” demonstrating one of the biggest appeals of this record. Dizzy’s vulnerable, melancholic and hopeful; a masked voice anyone could find themselves behind.
Dizzy
released August 15, 2023 via Royal Mountain Records
1. Birthmark
2. Close
3. Open Up Wide
4. Starlings
5. Knock The Wind
6. My Girl
7. Jaws
8. Salmon Season
9. Barking Dog
10. Cell Division
11. Stupid 4 U
12. Are You Sick Of Me Yet?
Dizzy
Instagram | Spotify | Bandcamp
Valerie Boucher is a writer based in Ottawa, Canada. You can follow her on Instagram and learn more at valerieboucher.ca.
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