This Mad Desire, the collaborative solo project of Hamilton, Ont.-based indie rock singer-songwriter Mackenzie Kristjon for the past 15 years, has a new album (available with the BOOK right now), Passing Lanes of Fate, that features his long-time drummer and friend Dan Konopka from Grammy Award-winning U.S. band OK Go on half the tracks, and guest appearances by Toronto Symphony Orchestra violinist Leslie Dawn Knowles, banjo player Sarah Tolle, award-winning singer Jessica Magoch, and Chris Birkett (Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Compares 2 U).

Mackenzie, a professional actor who has appeared in Law & Order Toronto, The Handmaid's Tale, and Chucky Season 3, has worked on close to 30 productions just in the last year, “either in front of the camera or behind the camera in the locations department,” he
says. “I've written a lot of music while being on set. I'm always jotting things down and then
when I get 20 minutes or half an hour, I'll pull out my guitar and work on a song.”
 

Described by one reviewer years ago as “Neil Young on David Bowie drugs,” Passing Lanes of Fate is less political than 2020’s Trump-inspired American Dream (where he’s mockingly pictured in the Oval Office on the cover). He has been dropping singles from it throughout the past while, including “Phantom Love,” “The Aliens Have Arrived” and “Ready for the Weekend,” ft. Da Fingaz.

“I've been trying to get away from politics,” he says. “For example, the first track, ‘The Aliens Have Arrived,’ is loosely based on a Margaret Atwood poem called The Aliens Arrive, and then there's ‘Ready for the Weekend,’ which is more of a party song. I recorded
the ending on the set of the movie Thanksgiving. I wanted a nightclub sound and luckily there were about 800 of us working that day.

“The last song I recorded is ‘Paper Trails’ and that’s the more political song. The main lyrics are ‘I will follow the paper trails,’ but the chorus is ‘My paranoia gave you the tools to undo me.’ So, it straddles both political and the personal.”

Mackenzie has been writing songs since he was 12. Born in Winnipeg of Icelandic heritage and raised in Winnipeg and rural Gimli, Manitoba, he spent his childhood playing piano and guitar, studying at the Royal Conservatory of Music. In the late 90s, he moved to Ontario to attend the University of Guelph, during which he put out his first album with the band Karma Repair.

He later toured as a background musician for other acts in Toronto and Hamilton, playing many of the notable clubs. But in the last decade, he recommitted to his own project, touring Iceland and North America as This Mad Desire.

“The song ‘Operators Are Standing By,’ was my reintroduction to the world of music and the music industry,” he says of the 2017 single. “After I wrote the song and recorded it, I organized a video that had about 40 cast members and about 30 crew members.”

The following year, he went to Iceland, just before the pandemic, touring behind the single and video for “Paris of Love” and the francophone counterpart “Paris Amoureux.” “Every shot I would lip sync in English or in French, and then they put up twin videos that are almost the same,” he says.

It’s this passion for the visual medium that connects with his “day” job. Every week he’s usually working on one to three different films, which influences his music videos. “OK Go is super famous for their videos. That's how Dan and I became friends. He watched my videos and he found my number and we hit it off,” Mackenzie says.

Dan laid down his drums at home in the U.S., sending in the audio files, but Mackenzie cut most of the album at the Hamilton Public Library in their recording studio. “It’s in the children’s department of our local branch,” he says. “It’s like a fishbowl, encased in glass.
I’m in there singing, making all these weird sounds, and it’s not soundproofed. There are little kids running around, so what happens is they stand at the window and peer in. The moms will yank them away but the fathers always shoot me a thumbs up.”

For interviews, photos, bookings, or more information, contact:

macsonfire@gmail.com.

Operators Are Standing By!

LIFE IS TOO SHORT. ENJOY IT!