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Feb 15, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Graham Tolbert

Quiet Takes is the project of indie singer/songwriter Sarah Magill. Magill has described her songwriting as a nomadic practice, with her music often coming together while on the road. She debuted under the moniker in 2020 with her EP Ahem., followed by a pair of 2021 EPs, San Fidel and Weekly, Weakly.

Most recently, she has been working on her debut full-length album, Regrets Only, recorded in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with producer Zach Hanson (S. Carey, Bon Iver, Gordi). Magill is also joined on the record by Sean Carey (Bon Iver, S. Carey), Jeremy Boettcher (S. Carey), Ben Lester (S. Carey), and Tim Sullivan, with Huntley Miller mastering the album.

The full album is out today, and accompanying the record Magill is sharing a video for one of the album tracks, “No One Again,” premiering with Under the Radar.

“No One Again” is a dream and psychedelic tribute to solitude, beginning with Magill’s vocals encased in piano and swaying drums before the track unravels in its latter half. By its end, it takes on a glassy art pop character, colored by overlapping melodies and wiry spools of guitar, all refracting off of iridescent synth tones. Wreathed in the shimmering keys, Magill confesses, “I don’t wanna write a song about you / Now when they ask me who / I’ll say nobody and it’ll be true.”

She describes the track as “A disintegrating slow jam for solo folk. Feast on solitude. Romanticize having no one (and everyone) to write about. Throw yourself a champagne picnic in the desert and toast your own singular magic.”

She continues, saying of the record, “The album was born in a hotel room shower in the fall of 2021. Raw from isolation trauma and battling creative doubts, I drove up to see a show in Eau Claire for the first time since the pandemic struck. I was slowly coming back to making music after years away, and the inner whispers were loud: It’s too late, you shouldn’t have quit back then, you’re embarrassing yourself now.

The show broke me. I witnessed the ease and beauty of musicians who had dedicated their lives to their craft and to each other. I witnessed what can happen when you don’t quit, don’t settle, don’t hide.

I escaped to my hotel room, sobbed in the shower and rode an intense wave of shame. Finally, beached up in my bathrobe, I asked myself: Do you want to find out what happens when you dedicate the rest of your life to your craft and the artists you meet along the way?

That night, I started the lyrics to ‘Oxbow Shower,’ which turned into track #2, a wry manifesto on harnessing regret to motivate action. I went home, finished up the demos I’d been quietly stashing, and sent them to Zach (who I’d met hosting a living room show for S. Carey years ago). He understood what I wanted to make, and, now, here it is: an album that sounds like me when I don’t quit, settle or hide. I hope Regrets Only whispers to others to do the same. “

Check out the song and video below. Regrets Only is out everywhere now.