Photo courtesy of Steph Alexis

It takes between 27 and 30 years for Saturn to travel through the zodiac and return to the same place it was when someone was born. Each return lasts approximately three years, representing accountability and agency. In preparation for her Saturn return, Kira McSpice sought help from breathwork facilitator and hypnotherapist Trina Merz, who guided her through a trance that took her on a spiritual trek, revisiting the past and giving her tools to navigate the next phase of her life.

She knew big shifts in her life were quickly approaching, and she wanted to greet her Saturn return in a respectful manner. Merz facilitated the trance, asking questions about how McSpice was feeling, the colors she saw and the symbols that were making themselves known. Already familiar with breath work, it was easy for McSpice to enter this dream-like state and quickly found herself in a desert.

“It’s a very creative practice and there’s a lot of release that comes from it,” she said. “It’s like remembering a dream. I didn’t completely have control over what was happening, but I was with it enough to recall.”

She was guided through the desert until she found a house that deeply resembled her childhood Georgian home. Gone were the tangible, physical attributes of what made it a home, replaced with a crumbling facade that still held all of the emotions. Walking through it was familiar and strange all at the same time, and as she made her way to the front of the interior, she was met with a ghost. It resembled both her and her great-grandmother, and as they touched hands she was awoken from the trance. That was the moment she realized she needed a container for this Saturn return.

“For all of the work that I was going to be doing, I wanted some vessel for it,” she said. “I knew that this was going to be a several-part album or several-part series where I explored different aspects of myself throughout the Saturn return and explored different themes of who I am and how I wanted to change; what I wanted to take with me and how I move through the world.”

She had already begun writing songs in the lead-up to her Saturn return, with the final product, Saturnism, released in February. The Desert, released in June, and The House, releasing this week, were all written with the intention of a quick release to encompass her transformation in real time.

The first time she released a series of albums was The Migraine in 4 Parts, a conceptual project that explored the four phases of a migraine headache. When it came to production and arrangement, she really immersed herself in conveying the physical pain of a migraine through instrumentation. She learned how much she enjoyed that aspect of the creation process, and wanted A Return in 4 Parts to carry that new tradition.

The beginning of the creation process actually involved her returning to her childhood home. Standing in front of the house brought back a particular memory: the aftershocks of a fight, threatening to run away from home and being told, “if you leave, you can’t ever come back.” Now here she was, proving that statement both right and wrong.

Emotions of seeing the house for the first time in years changed when the current owner walked outside and eventually invited her to step back into her former home. It gave her plenty of inspiration, which she took back to the church-turned-community space The Granite Church to record alongside co-producers Sean Brennan and Tyler Skoglund. Having worked together previously, their involvement brought forth a kind of love and patience that McSpice needed to create such personal music.

She gave Brennan all the credit for turning her idea of adding a choir into a much more meaningful ensemble. She knew these songs needed extra voices to carry the stories behind them, and instead of recruiting an established choir, they gathered friends and friends of friends, all sopranos and altos. The “homemade” choir made the process all the more intentional and loving.

The last song on The House, “Stillness”, is the only song sans choir. While each album can stand on its own, it is best heard together to fully grasp the journey of the songwriter. “Stillness” became the return to her spirit, the moments of introspection and the introduction to the final album.

McSpice felt the power behind the songs as she filmed the music video for “Return”. It was early in the writing process when she knew that song deserved a visual accompaniment and recruited a friend to make face masks depicting a sun and moon. Around the same time, she found videos of sister dancers Rainey and Anabelle Scarborough and immediately knew they needed to be the ones wearing the masks. Director Brandon Brumm took her ideas and ran with them, filming in several locations including The Granite Church.

“I didn’t even realize what I wanted,” she said. “It was such a rich and powerful experience that I came out of it feeling like it was part of the transformation of the Saturn return. That video shoot was a huge moment for me; a pivotal moment of realizing how powerful the music was.”

By greeting her Saturn return in a respectful manner, Kira McSpice was able to channel everything it gave her into a distinct piece of art. The House functions as the climax of A Return in 4 Parts, forcing her to confront life-altering experiences she had tried to bury but needed to revisit in order to accept her next phase.